The Immortal Gunman
by James Firecat
Summary: After his death Vincent Valentine discovers that he, an old friend, an old love and an old enemy are the only force that can make the afterlife worth 'living'. More Trigun references than you can shake a stick at Vincent/Lucrecia, Aeris/Sephiroth.
1. Chapter 1

FN (Firecat Note) Hi everybody, my name is James Fireact. If you don't know me I'm a big fan of FFVII, in addition to the stories I've posted on my own account anything posted by thegr8sephiroth I wrote and he edited.

This story has a certain amount of deep significance for me because it was the first piece of fanfiction I'd written that I managed to finished. Having finished it I'm not quite sure if its worthy of posting here (heck at the moment I'm not even sure if I have all of the story on my new computer) but I decided that I might as well find out since if nothing else it is doubtlessly unique. So leave reviews if you like it and I'll get around to posting/writing the rest of the story.

Oh and enjoy.

The Immortal Gunman Chapter one: The happiest day of my life is the day that I died.

It had been forty years since that day which no one could forget, the day that all of humanity had been faced with extinction. The day when people looked up into the sky and saw destruction and then salvation arrive. It was the day when 8 people went into the depths of hell on earth to confront the devil, to save the world.

Ironically in the those forty years none of those 8 had died, of course Cid Highwind's survival may have been heavily contributed to by the fact that Shera made him give up smoking when she became pregnant and made sure he didn't take it up again. Fate moved in mysterious ways however in its choice of who would be the first of those eight heroes to die, because he was the one who many had thought immortal.

Vincent Valentine was close to a hundred years old, and yet he still looked no older than he had on the day when he'd first joined AVALANCHE. He had collapsed in the center of the now-thriving town of Nibelheim, his body twisting in pain.

Cloud Strife, whose own ageing had been retarded by his mako treatments (not nearly as much as Vincent's though, at sixty one Cloud might have passed for around 45) had been the one who rushed him to the hospital. Unfortunately doctors where unable to find anything physically wrong with Vincent, but forcing them to strap him down before his continuing muscle spasm lead him to harm someone by accident.

With no diagnosis of an ailment there was no hope of a treatment, so Cloud was left to watch as companion tried to tear himself apart, even those times when Vincent had called for one of his four inner monsters (a feat he hadn't preformed in two around two decades now) had never looked this horrific, or lasted this long.

Over Vincent's pain filled screams Cloud could easily have missed the quiet sounds of a man's boots on the hospital floor. They came slowly, each step a carefully planed movement, making it even harder to hear them over Vincent's screams. It was even possible to not have heard the solemn voice of the Doctor outside the door speaking up in a hushed tone. "Sir you can't just walk in on. . . ."

What Cloud could not miss now matter how much he would have wanted to, was the voice that reply to the doctor's words. It was the same emotionless confident voice that he had made appeared in any nightmare he had for the last four decades of his life. It was a voice that seemed to have been designed to sends shivers up the human spine. "Human if there was anything you could do for that man I wouldn't be here."

The emphasis on "human" as if the speaker was referring to a particularly resilient breed of cockroach made it even more certain. Even Vincent's occasional shrieks didn't have a chance of drowning out of the "thud" as the Doctor's body was slumped to the ground, though at least no sound of metal piercing flesh proceeded it. Then the door slowly opened, and a man out of what had become both famous and infamous all across the planet stepped in.

His silver hair flowed unrestricted over his back, and it could not have been a more sharp contrast of color of his midnight black outfit. An outfit clearly cut along military lines even if it also bore no particular military medals of any kind. Instead of metals, it bore silver markings of indistinguishable meaning in apparently random places.

The man's eyes where a bright neon green, the color of the Lifestream itself and their pupils were little more than vertical slits. The moment after he'd entered they where focused directly on Cloud with a look that suggested what those eyes beheld was not even worthy of hatred or contempt, only pity. "Strife, you always where the kind to be at the right place at the right time doing the wrong thing. Get out."

It was not a comforting thought for Cloud to look up at former general Sephiroth, the man who had wanted to become a god and in his efforts almost destroyed the entire planet, and realize that while Cloud had aged, Sephiroth hadn't. The one saving grace was that his wife Tifa and their daughter Aeris were off with Nanaki at Cosmos Canyon. It also didn't hurt that Nanaki had aged for the better, he had grown several more inches and supposedly was finally full grown at eighty nines years old.

The fact that whatever happened, the women he loved and their daughter were safe (or at least wouldn't be hurt if Sephiroth decided to incinerate Niblehime a second time) gave Cloud strength of spirit. "You'll have to go through me to get to him." Sephiroth smiled, there were people who would rather have fought dragons than stayed in the same room with that leer. "You don't have any idea what I am Strife, so let me teach you a lesson."

Sephiroth calmly removed the black glove he wore over his right hand. Underneath it his hand was strangely insubstantial allowing Cloud to see right through it. "You killed me a very long time ago time ago Strife. Sadly as you may have noticed, my name will never vanish from people's lips I will never be forgotten, people will forever speak my name in reverence to my skills with a blade. So today I am here to serve as what so many others already considered me, the angel of death."

Cloud glared at Sephiroth and wished he had his sword with him. "Get out of here, I'm perfectly willing to believe that you're the cause of this." Sephiroth replaced the glove over his ghostly hand. "You know Strife you have a bad habit of assuming every single unpleasant little truth that comes from my lips is a lie. You really should consider seeing a psychologist about that, it wouldn't do for people to think your crazy, after all I'm sure you told everyone I was crazy after you'd made it impossible for me to have any say in the issue.

Vincent Valentine is doing this to himself. He's been doing it to himself ever since you woke him up in fact, because he found himself forced to put a bullet in the head of his son. A son that he'd abandoned to the culches of a true madman who did horrible things to him that you couldn't even comprehend, and then, well why waste time rehashing old history? I trust I don't need to actually mention the son's name? Because Vincent can not release his memories of me, there is only one other way that this can end, I will embrace him."

Cloud scowled, even if the physical similarities where there to see (particularly as they both seemed to be the same age) however Cloud was not in the mood to think of Sephiroth as Vincent's son. More to the point, it was far more fitting to think of Sephiroth as the hellish son of a hellish man, Dr. Simon Hojo had been demented enough to have a son like Sephiroth.

Yes you could see it (the fact that both were tall and whipcord lean for example) but that didn't mean Cloud had to like thinking of Sephiroth as Vincent's son. Sephiroth didn't disserve to be thought of as someone who was conceived between two people who loved each other. He was like some kind of horrific monster, he didn't come from somewhere, he was nothing but a science project that had wrapped itself up in a human shell along the way to completion.

"You know Strife it shows some rather blatant narcissism that you insist on believe that just because I burned down your home town, which by the way happened to be my home town as well not that you'll here me complaining about it, killed your mother, impaled you, and a few years down effectively violated your mind so badly that you were left in a catatonic state that there exists some kind of emotional bond between us.

I was a solider, you were my enemy, I strove to defeat you by any means available to you, attacking your body and your mind. You humans were all so quick to look up to me and shower me with praise when I was tearing apart the other humans you didn't like, but the moment I started practicing what I'd been taught on my teachers all of a sudden I became a monster.

But you know what's really funny? Vincent Valentine was a Turk, did you ever ask him about what kind of things he'd done for Shinra? Considering what men of his profession where known for they were doubtlessly worse than anything I ever did for them, he was a monster in human flesh. Yet when he turned those skills on Shirna he became a human draped in the flesh of a monster!

Isn't life amusing like that? A father becomes a hero his son becomes a monster for doing the exact same thing, but then like they say, and believe me I know, history is written by the winners. Now then, if you would kindly stand aside, I'm going to do something for him that you couldn't even dream of, reunite him with the woman he loves."

Cloud felt like spitting in Sephiroth's smug face. "Lucrecia is dead." Sephiroth shrugged magnificently. "Yes she is, and so am I. But maybe if you think about that for a few moments you'll realize what it means. You do remember the way the Lifestream works don't you? Death is just the start of another life. Nothing ever ends, but starts over again. Vincent Valentine disserves another start and I am here to give it to him.

So I think you need to take a look at yourself and ask, what is more important? A grudge you should have buried the same day you did my body, or freeing someone you claim to be your friend from unimaginable pain?" Cloud paused and looked at Vincent. "You walk out of this room and I swear I'll cut you down where you stand." Sephiroth calmly wrapped a hand against the door he had entered through. "I'm not going to be walking out of this room, now leave me in peace so I can get to work."

Cloud slowly and with much hesitation, and almost against his will got up and walked out of the room. Sephiroth slowly approached his father's twitching body and placed a black gloved hand to his father's head." It's time to go to the Promise Land." Sephiroth's entire body and his clothing slowly became as ethereal as fog and settled over Vincent's.

A few moments later when Cloud opened the door to see what had happened, Vincent Valentine lay still, Sephiroth's had not been the only spirit to depart from that Niblehime Hospital that day.

--

Vincent awoke with a very odd feeling indeed running through his body, it was odd feeling for him at least, though to anyone else it would be perfectly natural. For the first time in 70 years of flawless memory, his body felt symmetrical. He no longer felt an incredible weight where his left arm should have been, a weight he had grown accustom to. He slowly opened his eyes and looked down at his surroundings, he was lying in a bed, dressed his normal black suitcoat, cape and bandanna. It only took only a single quick look to confirm what he though he was feeling, he once again had a left arm. A left arm that he'd lost over half a century ago.

He still remembered how he had lost it to, and how he had earned the claw that had replaced it. That bastard Simon Hojo had blown Vincent's left arm off with an extremely powerful hold out pistol, that hadn't been his fault.

What had been Vincent's fault was that he'd let himself be subdued without killing Hojo first. It shouldn't have mattered how many attendants the doctor had called, how many people tried to stop him, even with only one arm Vincent should have been able to fight them off. After all killing people had been the only thing he was really good at in life, that was why he'd become a Turk in the first place.

He had managed to take a few of them out of the fight even as blood loss had made him dizzy, but he hadn't been strong enough to land the blow that mattered most. He hadn't been able to give one swift kick to Hojo's throat, a blow that would have shattered his windpipe. It wouldn't have mattered what came after that, Vincent would have had the enjoyment of knowing that the man he hated most had got what he disserved. Though Vincent couldn't be sure, he could only guess from everything he had seen, drowning in air, unable to breath through a broken windpipe, was a very slow and painful death. It would have been the most important assassination of his life, and Vincent had failed.

Hojo deserved it, there was no two ways about it Vincent had spent much of his 70 years of life going over memories, looking for where the blame lay. Some of it was his, some of it was Sephiroth's, some of it was Lucrecia's, but most of it fell squarely on the shoulders of Hojo and Jenova. Though Vincent had come to this conclusion posthumously (or at least for Lucrecia, Sephiroth, Hojo, and Jenova) but it did him some good to be able to bury a portion of his past and some of his nightmares.

Leaving behind thoughts of the arm and claw he'd lost (and the arm he'd somehow now regained) he looked around the room that he was in. There was nothing in particular that spoke out about it, or at least nothing that Vincent could recognize at first. He still just waking up though, his mind was comprehending objects and objects alone at first, but as those objects slowly came together to form patterns he realized there was a person sitting on a chair in front of his bed looking at him. It was Sephiroth and yet at the same time it was not Sephiroth.

The man's most arresting feature, or at least Sephiroth's most arresting feature, his emerald green glowing eyes were missing. In their place where a pair of equally green lenses; the man before him wore glasses. Also, though he had Sephiroth's silver hair, it was not long, at least not worn as long, it only hung down a bit passed his shoulders.

The man wore all black except for a few silver symbols, but those symbols had changed. The first and most obvious one to see where the ones on his arms. On each arm a silver cross gleamed against the black of the man's outfit. Also his clothes where no longer open near the neck in a "V" shaped pattern. The black outfit didn't look all that military either, in fact it almost looked like some kind of robe...

In the end it was the mans height that allowed Vincent to make his decision, even though the man was sitting down, Vincent could tell that the silver haired man was taller then himself. Few people where taller then Vincent, this man had to be Sephiroth.

However the quite calm with which he watched Vincent was completely different from what he had beheld every other time Vincent had met Sephiroth. The sheer quite and intense of the gaze, compounded by his eyes behind hidden behind those lenses left Vincent feeling rather like an animal in a zoo. "Sephiroth?"

It was not a statement, it was not referring to someone by name, it was a simple question. The man nodded slowly "Yes, though few are those who would recognize me here, even fewer are those would bother to call me by my name."

Vincent's mind was now operating at around seventy five percent efficiency and he strove to work out the improbabilities of looking at a dead man while having his left arm back. Was this heaven, that would explain why he once again had his hand, but then what was Sephiroth doing here? It could just as easily been Hell considering some of the things Vincent had done as a Turk, but it seemed much to tame for that, and if it was Hell, Vincent doubted he would have his arm back.

He looked Sephiroth straight in the eye (or as much as was possible when the man was wearing glasses) and spoke with careful pronouncement "Where is here?" Sephiroth shrugged his shoulders. "You are in the Promised Land, or what is left of it. To be more exact you are in the house where me, Mother, and Half Cetra live, we're several miles from any other life, an agreement we, and the rest of the world mutually agree on."

Vincent took his time thinking about that answer as well, when Sephiroth was involved the word "Mother" could have two very distinct and incredibly different meanings. Vincent didn't dare to hope that the word had the connotation that he would have favored to a considerable degree at that moment. However at the same time, it had to have that connotation didn't it?

The phrase "Half Cetra" could only have one connotation, Aeris, she much like Sephiroth and both of his mothers was dead, that gave him three reasons to hope. The first was that if apparently he was living in a house filled with dead people, then it was just possible that it could be Lucrecia. The second reason was that the logical part of his brain told him that Aeris wouldn't chose to live with Jenova under any circumstances. Finally Sephiroth's voice lacked the homicidal malice that it had possessed four decades ago.

However, Vincent had learned a long time ago that hope was a very different thing than fact, he had been hurt too many times hoping that he would again see Sephiroth's birth mother in the flesh. So after mentally preparing himself for the worst, he asked. "When you say your mother, who are you talking about?"

Sephiroth didn't look at all surprised by the question. "I am talking about the woman you loved. Jenova and I parted ways when we met in this world and I realized how different our goals truly are." Vincent's years of physical and mental training meant nothing at that moment, his heart leaped into his throat, he didn't even bother contemplating on Sephiroth's tone of voice. "Lucrecia?" Sephiroth nodded and looked away, as if some part of him still wasn't completely sure that the woman he spoke of was his mother.

Vincent couldn't particularly blame him under the circumstances, Lucrecia had used up every ounce of strength she had just giving birth to Sephiroth, and then Vincent more or less thrown his own life away trying to save him from Hojo's culches.

Having gotten over that one breif burst of joy Vincent's mind finally once again functioned correctly and he played back Sephiroth's previous statement. He had spat out the word "Jenova" like it was a curse, that was new. "So I take it your intentions have changed?" It was not a tactful question, but sometimes the straightest path is through the mud.

In response Sephiroth shook his head firmly. "My intentions remain unchanged. I intend to live in a perfect world free from humans. But then this world unlike the one I where I died was not made for humans, humans aren't allowed in here, this is a world for those who exist outside the Lifestream. A world for Cetra."

Vincent now spoke with a fierceness which hadn't accompanied any of his other questions or statements. "You're not a Cetra, you're human." Sephiroth shrugged as if it was a minor detail instead of the major revelation it should have been the last time the two had met if Sephiroth had believed it. "Not all of us are lucky enough to be born as Cetra, but then what is a Cetra?

A being who doesn't age with the passage of time? A being can naturally call upon magic which surpasses anything humans can do with materia? A being who can hear the planet's voice? For I am all of those things. For example right now I know that this world is in pain and I desire to ease its suffering, and those who seek to destroy or pervert this world like Jenova will suffer the full force of my wrath.."

Vincent saw some of the old madness once again in Sephiroth's face, but it was different this time, the goal may have been the same but the planning was clearly being done by a general who was thinking with his head instead of with his heart. Vincent relented slightly knowing better then to try and corner Sephiroth like an animal, he cared more for information then moral victories. "What exactly has Jenova done to this world?"

Sephiroth looked down at the floor in disgust. "She is far more insidious then I had thought, though I suppose I should have known that from the way she strung me along back during my first life. I underestimated her twice, there will be no third time. The Promised Land is severely affected by the wishes and desires of those living in it, look out the window."

Sephiroth pointed and Vincent's eyes followed to a plain looking window. Apparently they where on the second story of this house, and he could clearly see a garden growing outside the house. Garden was not really the correct the right word for it, it was more like a small forest in fact, the only thing lacking was animal life.

Vincent was about to ask what Sephiroth meant when his head continuing to clear allowed his vision to focus to the level of a hawk searching for it's prey. Beyond the forest, there was nothing. Sand, sand, sand, nothing but sand, the house was in the center of an oasis, but aside from that oasis all that existed was desert.

He looked back at Sephiroth his mind slowly coming to a conclusion "Those who wish to bring destruction, if they wish for it strongly enough, the destruction is created without requiring action of any kind"

Sephiroth nodded firmly. "We are lucky, in a way, Half-Cet... Aeris, still manages find it in her heart to care for the plants which sustain us even after all she has suffered. She still loves them knowing their lifespan is but a flicker of her own, less then that in this life. She still loves them, knowing they will die no mater what she does, and she will have to watch them die."

Sephiroth didn't need to say that he found it hard to understand Aeris' conviction in this area, and Vincent didn't need to ask why, those who went about the business of dealing death didn't spend much time thinking about life.

"What happened to her?" Sephiroth's eyebrows lowered and Vincent knew he was closing his eyes to think of how to correctly answer the question. Finally it came out one word at a time. "They... the Cetra, they hate her as much as they hate me and my mother, as much as they hate Jenova. The Cetra, most of them anyway, are like sheep. They don't understand how this world that has supported them for thousands of years can be failing them now.

Those who are in charge, who have the stronger magic powers, they are looking for any excuse they can find. Any one who isn't a Cetra, they blame them for what is happening to this world. In truth they aren't far off, the main way Jenova has been corrupting this world is by somehow connecting the Lifestream to this world.

Some humans have who died are being reincarnated here, reborn with their minds and bodies fully intact, and for the most part not just any humans, the worst ones. Murders, thieves, bandits, one after another they've trickled in. But then like animals even your average domesticated human will commit horrible acts if they world is not kind to them, and this world is no longer kind to anyone. That connection is how we were able to call you to us...

Sadly enough it wasn't those humans who proved to be the greatest danger to Aeris, it was her own people, some Cetra where practically ready to kill her when my mother found her. Lucrecia saved her life, and put the fear of god into those Cetra showing of her own particular style of "magic" which I'm sure you're familiar with if you knew her at all. She is quite brilliant when it comes to technical matters but then they said I was the best strategist ever born.

Aeris hasn't been the same since then for reasons even I can understand. How do you live, when everything you've ever been told turns out to be a lie, and the only people you can trust, are strangers to you, or worse?"

Vincent looked up at Sephiroth as if he hadn't heard him correctly. Vincent remembered Sephiroth's mother as a shy little thing, her sprit practically crushed into dust from years being married to Simon Hojo. Subsequently the image of her standing up against a murderous crowd hardly fit in with that particular idea. It didn't help that Vincent needed to struggle to avoid voicing his thoughts about Sephiroth seamed to be doing just fine at adapting to the circumstances he had spoken of.

Instead he drew the conversation towards a less dangerous topic. "My left arm, Hojo blew it clean off s how did I get it back?" Sephiroth much to Vincent relaxation and amazement smiled. "You can't tell? Well allow me to reiterate my point for a second time, she's a genius and spent much of the last seven decades building that arm for you."

Vincent opened and closed his fist in amazement. "You're saying this thing, it's mechanical?" Sephiroth responded with a quick and curt nod. "The nerve structure is completely non-biological, even its designed to interface with whatever nerves you have left, she said that the human body is basically a machine, thus with work any part of it can be replaced with an equally effective mechanical counterpart."

Vincent slowly rolled back his suitcoat's sleeve and touched his arm with his right hand "It's warm..." Sephiroth nodded again. "Do you think it would be truly that difficult to design prosthetics that contained internal heating? Lucrecia Crescent's true talents were wasted in Shinra's science department, she should have been in weapons development, in addition to your arm she also made my cross."

Vincent looked behind Sephiroth, and for the first time his eyes bothered to inform his brain of something that was blatantly obvious. Sephiroth no longer had Masamune or a sword sheath on his back. In its place was a cross that was just about as long as Masamune and its arms where at least 3 feet long. It had no sheath, instead it was simply held to Sephiroth's back by several leather straps. It was incredibly odd to see Sephiroth without his sword, as if he had lost a limb (or gained one) Vincent looked up at the cross as his brain tried to piece together something that was completely rational, and insane at the same time "You're a priest now?"

Sephiroth pointed to the smaller crosses on the arms of his outfit. "I have not given up my trade, simply changed my allegiances. I am now a SOLDIER in god's army, a messenger of redemption, saving those who have strayed from his light, and protecting the faithful." Vincent couldn't help it, his eyes rolled in his head, sarcasm dripping from his every word. "Having given up on becoming a god you've decided except simply being in the service of one?"

Sephiroth shook his head forcefully. "The mortal body is flawed, I have already proven how it is possible for one to become more then one was born, or created as. I may yet become a god in time, but for now I will simply pay my respect to my betters. Whatever God is, he, she, it, is a being who has managed to outdo me in that one particular felid. To deny one who is better than me in a field to which I put so much attention would be a grievous tactical error. I will learn the ways of God and pass them on to others, for the time to come when I will become equal with him."

Like many things Sephiroth had said it was logical if one used a loose enough definition of common sense or sanity. If you wanted learn how to do something, it often required you to study under someone who had already done it. Thus clearly to Sephiroth who wished to ultimately become a god, being a priest was a rational enough choice even if the mind that came up with it might not be so.

Vincent knew better then to pursue what could easily prove to be another sensitive area. Instead he carefully placed his legs on the floor and pushed himself off from sitting to standing. "You say she's been working on it for seven decades, but I didn't see her spirit till three decades after she died..." Sephiroth's eyes drifted over towards a flight of steps leading downwards.

"She's been watching you since she died, you may have only seen her then, but she's been watching over the entire time. Praying that you could leave her behind because she knew you would never naturally die, and that the pain would never dull so long as you carried her in your heart. She wanted you to forget her, even though she never even for an instant thought about forgetting you."

Vincent suddenly felt an extreme burst of energy race through his body as the two very different parts of his mind came alive. The first was simple joy that his love hadn't forgotten him, and that she was waiting for him, that it hadn't been in vain. The second part Vincent was considerably less proud of.

Either way he resisted an urge to practically leap at Sephiroth and ask him his next question from less then a few centimetres away. "She's downstairs?" Sephiroth nodded again, and Vincent didn't think. He didn't realize just how far he could jump now that he no longer had a metallic claw holding him down. He almost reached the stairway behind Sephiroth in one jump!

Vincent could have descended those stairs more haphazardly, but it would have taken an incredible skill or lack there of. Either way, the racket he created didn't seam to bother him, he had only one goal, to see her. Ironically all he ended up seeing was a blur of white as he came down the stairs.

One moment he was taking the last step off the stairs, the next he was on his back being passionately embraced. It only took Vincent long enough to grasp the very base situation he was in before his own two hands (no longer having to worry about inadvertently crushing someone with an embrace from his left claw) went around his embracer's chest and his own mouth stoped trying to grasp for breath and started kissing back. It seamed like forever but even Vincent eventually needed to break that wondrous embrace long enough to catch his breath and get his bearings.

He recognised the green eyes (even if they now glowed with mako enhancements) and in what he would consider an act of amazing of idiocy in the current situation, chose to speak rather then to continue "You didn't use to have silver hair." Lucrecia Crescent apparently had been extending her lungs to their very limit much like Vincent and needed to catch breath her breath before responding. "You didn't use to have red eyes."

It was hardly kind of exchange that would have been truly needed in this situation, but neither one cared. The situation was probably exacerbated by the very nature of the relation Vincent and Lucrecia had been engaged in when they had last been together, the two only had so much time together where they could say or do things without fear the wrong ears (which was any ears but especially her husband's) overhearing. Thus they had discovered that words sometimes simply should take a back seat to actions.

It didn't help that Vincent, whose vocabulary was at one time known for consisting mostly of colorful military phrases, there was no words which came close to saying what he wanted to say and Lucrecia for part had lost the ability to say those words and trust that they truly meant anything given that she'd already said them to Hojo. Thus both of them decided to work out their own language of actions, which was simple and impossible to not understand.

Given how long the two had been apart, there was no real way to know how far it might have gone if they hadn't been interrupted. "If you two would kindly act more like rational people, and less like cats in heat we have some business to discuss." It could not have been an easy thing for Sephiroth to say, especially considering who was involved in what. Vincent and Lucrecia let go of each other (with more then a little mutual regret) and stood up.

Vincent managed to finally have time that was measured in something larger than fractions of a second to examine Lucrecia again. Her hair was no longer a lively brown but was now a shimmering silver, just like Sephiroth's. All things considered it was not such an unbelievable change, Jenova cells had changed Vincent's eye color from a rather dark brown to a blood red.

Besides the way her face had changed was much more noticeable than the way her hair had. It wasn't just her eyes that were glowing, it was that she was smiling. It was a sight Vincent had rarely seen, and even then it had always been a smile which the owner knew would only be a temporary one. It was odd for Vincent though, to see a face so often drenched in tears now adorned with a wide smile. But then it took him a moment to realize he himself had been smiling only a few seconds ago, not that anyone would be able to see his face.

Sephiroth slowly crossed to the other side of the room that most likely was a kitchen and pulled out a case, before handing it to Lucrecia "You made them for him..." Lucrecia nodded and carefully handed the case to Vincent before taking a seat at a table in the center of the room as Sephiroth had done after giving her the case. Vincent could tell that if his body hadn't been enhanced by Jenova cells and mako the case would have felt quite heavy.

He then joined them at the table, and as he opened the case Lucrecia spoke. "This is another present, I'm sure Sephiroth told you about your arm, band while these aren't quite as versatile but I think you'll enjoy them all the same." Inside the case Vincent found two very impressive looking pistols. They were the same size, the only difference Vincent's expert eyes could detect was that one was a shinning silver and the other completely black. As he looked down at those pistols a strange thought occurred to him "I'm not holding any weapons..."

Vincent must have somehow left Death Penalty behind when he died, and that thought saddened him for a moment. That gun had become part of him over the years, not just a firearm but also practically a friend. But then he had kept it close at all times because it was the last thing he had to remind him of Lucrecia, and who needed reminders of someone when you had the genuine article?

He carefully took the silver one in his right hand, then as an afterthought he grabbed the black one in his left. They felt perfectly balanced, at least the silver one did, the black one did not so much feel unbalanced, but it'd been a long time since he'd held a gun with his left hand. He looked down the sights and then looked at the two guns and nodded slowly "Do they have names?" Lucrecia shook her head/ "I felt it would be more appropriate to let you name them."

Vincent nodded slowly as he glanced at the black one. "Very well, this one will be death..." his gaze wandered to the silver gun "and that one is Redemption." Both Sephiroth and Lucrecia nodded, evidently pleased with his choices, and as Vincent examined them closer their creator gave him a quick run down of their capabilities. "They're both made to exactly the same specifications. Their ammunition is 13MM bullets, I would have used mako tips but mako isn't as easy to come by out here as it was back home so you'll have to settle for lead bullets. That said, they'll still let you accurately blow huge gaping holes in anything you shoot at, and what more could you honestly ask of a gun?"

There really wasn't much else you could ask. Along with the two guns there were also two clips in the case, one was black and one was silver. Vincent carefully loaded the silver clip into Redemption and the black one into Death. He smiled as he looked at his new guns. "Well I suppose that just leaves of the question of what people am I going to be using my new toys on?" Sephiroth looked towards one of the doors leading into the room they currently occupied. "Aeris, you can come in, it is time for us to make plans."

A few moments after Sephiroth spoke Aeris entered and Vincent felt an odd sense of Deja Vu. For every bit that Lucrecia was better, Aeris was worse, her eyes were locked at the floor, and she wordlessly pulled up a seat. She looked up at Vincent for a breif moment and gave a weak smile. "Hello Vincent, it's good to see you again." It was an uncomfortable reminder of something Vincent had imagined from the very moment he met this girl.

Brown hair and green eyes, she had made him think of Lucrecia, and he had felt that unless someone was there to protect her, she would die. But Vincent hadn't told that to any of the members of AVALANCHE, he had trusted that Cloud could look after her, and he had failed. Now that he had his Lucrecia back, he couldn't help but feel a certain duty to look after Aeris.

Sephiroth's gaze carefully drifted around the three table. "Well now we're all here. Now that the four of us have finally gathered, its time to get to work. It's said that there are four chocobo riders who will herald the complete destruction of the planet, Jenova still spreads horror wherever she goes and I can promise you she has Doctor pestilence with her." Vincent couldn't help but smile, there was something (if not simply the flat out the entire concept) about getting to kill Hojo again which appealed to him. "Well then, let it begin. We will show Fear and Plague just how horribly overmatched they are against Death and War. Here is to you, War."

Vincent raised up his gun, his black gun, and Sephiroth calmly wrapped his bare palm against it. "And to you Death, and to Redemption in general." All four of them where quite for a moment until Vincent broke it. "Wherever you're keeping Masamune you should blow the cobwebs from it, we'll probably need every weapon we can get our hands on." Sephiroth shook his head and placed his left hand upon the center of his new accessory. "I have all the protection I need right here in this cross."

Vincent cast a questioning glance at Lucrecia but she just smiled and nodded, apparently having every confidence in Sephiroth's words. Vincent didn't press it any farther, instead he simply shrugged. "This is an odd sight, seeing a pack of wolves run to the defence of a herd of sheep."

Sephiroth shot a quick glare at Vincent. "I would rather think of us as a group hunting dogs." Vincent's smile was sardonic in the extreme. "A group of hunting dogs isn't related to each other by blood. More to the point, hunting dogs don't frequently breed among each other of their own volition."

Lucrecia laughed at that statement, it was a musical laugh that made Vincent want to laugh as well... and he hadn't laughed for almost a decade if not more. She managed to make out two words though before se gave into complete hysterics "Much breeding." For the nature of the joke and the way it actually managed to reduce Vincent to tears, Sephiroth didn't seem humiliated or embarrassed.


	2. Chapter 2

FN: I'd like to start off by thanking Aira Slytherin and chibi-selene because of them I've decided to post this chapter. That said if you two enjoy this story you should go reading and reviewing Twilight Perfection since I wrote it and its a FFVII fic, and Ronin Trip (you can either fic just by searching for it by title since I choose such outrageous titles that there aren't any other stories posted which share those titles) becuase frankly if I can't find more people who like that thing I'm going to throw my self out a window because I spent the last year and a half of my life writing it and two sequels.

Sorry if it I'm seeming a bit like a jerk but updating this story means I now have to worry about keeping serval fics updating, editing my full length novel to the point that I can read it aloud without spelling errors and better ways to phrase the lines jumping out of the page at me like spiders with springs for legs and a job up in the air all at the same time, well if its any conciliation no one seems to care much about Ronin Trip since only two people have checked the last chapter so I can probably let that one go to once a month updates anyway, hopefully enjoy.

Oh and by the way the story only gets more Trigunesq (minus the refusal to kill people) from here, I say a blatant cry for you people to tell me that this fic was more of the crap that came out of my first attempts at writing so that I can delete it from , shove the files that make it up back into the depths of my hardrive and remove this particular ten ton weight from my shoulders. I mean, yee gods, I'm had to rewrite practically every other sentence of this thing, but because you asked for it, here it is faithfully edited so that it's fully readable, whatever it is.

Also the version of Vincent's past I give in this chapter (which Sephiroth knows because Lucrecia told it to him) was written by me well before Dirge of Cerberus came out (which I have yet to play) so, yeah.

The Immortal Gunman chapter two: Take no prisoners, here in this nock down drag out war.

The bus came to a stop and four people stepped off. They had no choice but to slowly work their way through a veritable wave of people who where trying to get onto the bus before it departed. The quartet however refused to allow themselves to be trampled underfoot or deterred from their goal.

Sephiroth and Vincent (who was now wearing a pair of glasses with red tinted lenses to hide the mako glow of his eyes) managed to push aside a large enough gap in the crowd that Lucrecia and Aeris could easily follow in their wake. Lucrecia was wearing a simple white labcoat, and pair of blue long pants with a rather large backpack strung over her shoulders. Aeris on the other hand was wearing her normal pink dress with red travel jacket on top of it.

As it turned out however the bus that people had been so frantic to get aboard would not be going anywhere; scarcely less then twenty seconds after the bus stopped a bullet punctured one of its tired.

The suddenly dilapidated state of their previous mode of conveyance didn't particular affect the four who had no further need of it. Three of them didn't even bother looking back as they proceeded to the largest building in sight which just like Vincent had expected turned out to be a tavern/inn.

The former Turk knew that such places were good for gathering information and at the moment none of them had much of a clue as to where Jenova was. Since if they could find and defeat her, the worst of the damage to the Promise Land should be undone, all four considered this their top priority.

The people who had been trying to get on board the bus now departed in just about every conceivable direction with equally frantic haste, once again without seriously disturbing the four newcomers.

Inside a minute they were seated fairly close to the bar with Vincent having order drink. The bartender took a moment to look at Sephiroth, giving the silver haired man a humorless smile while he prepared Vincent's drink. "You're a priest?" Sephiroth nodded slowly as he carefully unslung his cross and left it leaning against one of the building's walls. "Of sorts, why?"

The bartender shook his head slowly as he placed Vincent's drink before him. "We could really use someone like you out here." Another shot rang out though no scream of pain accompanied it, that was no guarantee it had failed to pierce human flesh. The bartender began to slowly polish a glass as he spoke. "We don't want anything fancy, but dead people need funerals all the same. Even the Cetra, like to believe something is looking after their dead."

Lucrecia raised an eyebrow, her eyes focussing on Sephiroth's cross. "Just how many people can you think of who need to be buried?" The bartender looked at her oddly. "It's hard to figure out, given that the number keeps going up so frequently. This town has been practically held at gun point by bandits for a couple months now. No one really gets out, and few people get in. For one thing the bandits have a few of their snipers take up a few positions in various run down houses during the day and then more or less pick people off at random..."

At the word "snipers" Vincent put down his only half finished drink stood up and headed for the door. The bartender starred mouth agape at the swinging door he left in his wake. "Is that guy deaf or crazy?" Sephiroth sure that the wall he'd leaned his cross against wouldn't be collapsing any time soon returned to his seta. "My companion is neither, he is just, very, very, good."

Practically the moment that Vincent set foot outside again bullet landed only about a couple inches to the left of him kicking up a small cloud of sand. "Whoever did that should come out right now, or I'll have to dig you out one at a time, and it won't be pretty fun, for you at least. I much to my surprise am all but chomping at the bit to try out my new toys." His piece spoken Vincent drew Redemption and Death.

Inside the tavern Sephiroth continued speaking regardless of the sound as the first shot rang out. "Have you ever heard the story of the heartless gunman?" The bartender silently shook his head and Sephiroth continued, warming up to the subject. "He was human, once. But something happened to him along the way, and he stopped being like you, like me, like anything this world has ever seen before.

Maybe he was unloved as a child, laughed at by others, no one will ever know, but the results were clear enough. Imagine, if you will, a seven year old child, in his right hand gripping a gun that would be the perfect size for a toy gun other children played with. However it isn't a toy, very real bullets are loaded in it, even if they are a small, when a bullet rips through your head, into your brain and out the back, how large it is rarely matters.

People only laughed at him harder when they first saw him, but they stopped laughing when he fired. No one could laugh when he pointed a gun at them, and they knew that in the next few moments their lives could come to an abrupt end. At first he only did it because it was a way to stay alive, for a seven year old child with no parents to survive in the hell of lower Midgar.

People couldn't believe it at first; they claimed he was some kind of vengeful spirit instead of a human being. The poltergeist of a child who must have died some horrific death, but he proved them wrong. Few could cling to the idea that he was simply a specter as with each passing day he became less a boy and more a man. He grew up like most weeds, simply because no one powerful enough had bothered to kill him."

Sephiroth paused and let another gunshot drive his point home. "Then one day he went too far... The man was one of Shinra's more important bureaucrats, and they found him with very small bullet lodged in his heart. So Shinra eventually found him, and dragged him in kicking, screaming, and biting every in the way. It had taken an entire score of guards, mainly because they couldn't go near him till he ran out of bullets.

Then, when Shinra had one chance to destroy this horrific anomaly, they made a grave mistake. They chose to embrace that anomaly, not realizing that no leash they put over him could possibly last forever. They trained him as a Turk, one of Shinra's professional killers; they took raw burning rage, and refined it into cold skill."

It was just possible to hear the sound of a gunshot, and shortly after it a body slamming against the ground. Sephiroth was of course unshaken: he continued with his tale. "Any sensible man would have been horrified by the way he acted, the way he took to target practice like a fish to water. The way he didn't even care why the person he had been told to kill was to be killed, simply to kill. He grew up, and he did not fall prey to the most common failure of gunmen, because they did not need to push themselves, to exert themselves to kill, they never exert themselves, they grow weak, and grow pathetic, grow unable to survive a fight in which their foes could strike back, either with fists or bullets.

This one didn't, he lived for no reason but to make his body a perfect killing machine, he exercised day after day, but you wouldn't know it by looking at him. He doesn't have bulging muscles, for those would be wasted, true fighters don't bulge. By looking at him, you couldn't tell what he was until it was too late.

His body grew long and lean, not an ounce of weight on his body is unaccounted for, his muscles are easily concealed beneath his clothing just like the tools of his trade. But he can't hide it in the way he moves, the deadly grace, the perfect fluidity, the hunting instinct.

He does not endure hardship, he thrives on it, demands it, to him shooting is not a test of guns, it is a test of wills. He will look down the barrel of his gun, and smile as he pulls the trigger and sends a man to the world beyond. His face shows no fear, he will never flinch, each shot is as much a monument to perfection, he will not allow himself to miss, ever. Shinra didn't realize these things until it was too late, realize what could happen if he was put into proper society as a bodyguard, expected to socialize with others."

Sephiroth allowed the moment to hang suspended in air, even when he already had his audience's undivided attention. "I bet even you can't guess what he did; he didn't kill people for fun like normal. He did the one last thing which could make him a true avatar: he fell in love.

They say the love of a good women can cure any man's sickness, but it simply worsened his. He no longer needed money as a reason to kill, what is money as motivation, when you have a love? A love whom he vowed to protect to the ends of the earth, and whom he failed. He was buried in a coffin, and no one mourned his passing, few even knew of it.

While the fear that another may come like him may already be in your veins, this tale does not end with the gunman's death. He was too good a killer, too motivated, too well trained to allow something like death to stand in his way. For years he slept, for years the world moved on, but for him time stood still, and eventually he rose from the grave, and time had not changed him.

He had not aged a day, and he never again would show the passage of time, he had looked death in the eye, and the grim reaper blinked. He had changed in other ways though, before it had all been a game to him, killing was a game in which the loser lost his life. Now however, killing was a task.

He rose from the dead and struck down the one who had killed his love. To make up for the hesitation that had caused him to fail before, he killed the man twice. His foe's body twisted and contorted even after his own death, turning into a horrific monster determined to kill the gunman even in its death throes. But it failed, because the hate in the gunman's heart for a world that had taken his love from him was more powerful than any monster.

Because that hate gave him strength; he harnessed, and forced it, like death, to serve him. Any who would dare to say that deamons do not exist would be fools if they had seen him then, his eyes blazed red with the fires of hell. His skin turned into leathery scales, wings split from his shoulders as his hands turned into claws.

The deamon that he had become called forth the fires of hell themselves to burn his foe to ash, and in the end, that was all that was left of him. The gunman walked away from that ash, his hatred having only been dimmed, not extinguished.

Now, he is here, and to believe that any of these rag-tag bandits that could defeat him is foolish in the extreme. Particularly because in this world, he has found his love who he lost in the last world, and he will not lose her again. The only fear he has is for her, the only concern for her, the only desire for her, he will not die, not unless she commands it. He once again refuses to bow to Death's call; the Grim Reapers' blade will prove a dulled, rusted stick against him."

Sephiroth finally finished, and he could see a few beads of sweat going down the barkeepers face, the other patrons of the bar where also attempting to press closer without making such actions obvious. The barkeeper's voice was frazzled, and unsteady. "What would a man of God be doing with one like him?"

"I travel with him for the same reason Jesus, son of God, ate with whores and tax collectors. The healthy have no need of a doctor, the sinless no need of a priest. I doubt I will ever be able to expunge the deamon from within him, it has been with him too long; to remove it would be to kill him. However, so long as I am with him I can guide the man and control the deamon.

The hunting dog neither knows, nor cares where it food comes from, he is much the same. Bullets do not care if they draw blood from the wicked or the pure, neither does the gun that fires them. That is all he is, a human gun looking for a hand to aim him, better that it be one like mine then someone with a looser set of morals. That is the flaw in all of evil's works, if one is careful to guard against them they may be used as tools by the pious. Now I must go make sure he does not get carried away by the spilling of blood."

Sephiroth stood up and headed for the door, as he went he herd a low voice. "I find it hard to hard to imagine anyone painting a less complementary picture of your father." Sephiroth shrugged as he turned to face Lucrecia and muttered a response back to her. "Good, it's better for all of us if they're so frightened of him that they won't dare to look too closely at me.

It is the burden of any general to use, and, if needed, abuse his men to fit the tactical situation. Now if you will excuse me, I must see how my new second in command is dealing with the riff-raff outside."

--

Vincent Valentine was in his element. Even if this was his first time using Redemption and Death in combat, they both felt like long lost friends whom Vincent had merely been out of touch with for years. One particularly foolish sniper decided to fire a second warning shoot, and it could have cost him his life.

Vincent heard the crack of gunfire, spun, his body all but instantly assuming a classic duellist pose before firing a single bullet. It was easy for him to pick up the sound of metal and glass shattering as that bullet perfectly tore through the scope of a bandit's rifle. There was no scream following, whished prove that Vincent own "warning" shot had been far more persuasive. Satisfied with the way this test of his new equipment he didn't even bother shouting, just spoke calmly.

"That was a free sample of a product I've been selling all my life, condensed justice in a clip, universal karma wrapped in lead. If you've been shooting at nothing but ordinary humans for a long time I'm afraid you'll find me something of a harder target to hit."

Another gunshot split the air and Vincent twisted his head to the side, allowing the bullet to pass harmlessly before he returned fire. A few moments later he could make out the slumping body of what might have once been a man as rolled off the roof and falling to the ground, a bloody mess.

"You think I can't see you, but guess what I don't have to, not so long as I can hear you, or at least hear you gunshots. It's amazing what you can do when you've practiced for just about a century straight. I can hear where a shot comes from, observe the path the bullet takes and then do a little simple math to send a bullet right back where your shot came from. So go ahead, try and shoot me."

A third shot rang out, from the exact opposite direction Vincent was facing. Another round left Redemption's chamber even before that bandit's bullet could past through the empty air he no longer occupied.

Vincent calmly returned Death to its holster, evidently figuring he'd only need one of his guns to finish this particular mess. "You're a bunch of slow learners, so let me spell it out for you. Unless you think you can dodge bullets, you shouldn't be taking pot shots at me. Go run back to your master and tell him his fun is over."

Vincent didn't bother to turn in the direction the fourth shot came from, instead, he simply took a quick hop backwards, held Redemption out at more or less ninety degrees to his body, and pulled the trigger. He didn't need his eyes to confirm his hit, he could here the thump of a body falling a story or two just fine. Vincent returned Redemption to its holster as well and began to head back towards the tavern. "I've had enough of you wastes of my time."

A moment later Sephiroth stepped out and gave his father a quick approving nod at the sight of the three dead bodies littering the ground. Sephiroth turned back and walked into the tavern (with Vincent joining him a few moments later) and looked directly at the bartender. "I couldn't help but notice this town appears to be without a house of god. I would prefer to visit such a place before I begin my work."

All the others instantly looked away as if Sephiroth had taken off his glasses and told them who he really was. However the bartender only shuddered and maintained eye contact. "There's a church about one mile east of this place. It was the first to the fall to the bandits, it's their base now."

Sephiroth's face contorted in rage, it was easy to see even with his glasses on. "How many of the godless heathens are there?" The profusely sweating man only shrugged helplessly. "More then we could ever hope to deal with, maybe two hundred of 'em?"

The rage vanished from Sephiroth's face. "The Lord shall turn over the tables of money changers; he will cast out those who have turned his temple into a house of sin. If you will excuse me, I have to go do my part to help make this world a slightly better place. I'd suggest you two stay here, we can deal with this on our own."

Sephiroth strode back out the door and nodded to Vincent. "One mile east, two a hundred bandits in total, that's a hundred for you and a hundred for me." Vincent began to load a new clip into each of his guns saving the only partially used clips. "Well that won't be very fair for them will it?"

Back inside the tavern Aeris looked with slight hesitation at the door through which Sephiroth had walked. Slowly she turned back to face the only memeber of the group who remained. "We need to go after them, they'll get themselves killed trying to fight that many people, and armed with what? Vincent has two pistols and Sephiroth has his bare hands."

Lucrecia chuckled to herself at a private joke. "Sephiroth is armed with god's everlasting love and promise to protect his children in the form of his cross." Aeris glared at the older woman, it wasn't the first time she had waxed poetic about the paper covered lump of metal.

"You would think that after more than two decades you could tell me what was so important about that cross, Sephiroth takes it everywhere with him, I've seen him sleep with it still strapped to him a few times. More to the point why is it so heavy? I've felt it and I'm sure it would take at least five normal people to lift it from the ground."

Lucrecia out one of the tavern's windows, a smile still tugging at her lips. "As Sephiroth would say 'this cross is heavy because it's so full of mercy.' On to the point about numbers, those two up against a bunch of human bandits who are used to dealing with frightened civilians isn't a very apt analogy. It would be like comparing ill fed nags to the greatest race horse ever, and the horse that sired it. Vincent could take them all shooting right handed."

Aeris raised an eyebrow and for a moment wondered what other things Lucrecia knew about Vincent that he had never bothered to share with AVALANCHE, at least not while she had been alive. "So he's left handed? I can't remember him ever missing a shot, and that was him fighting with his offhand?"

Lucrecia nodded, a rather odd sort of satisfaction in her voice. "That's what years of training will do for you. Now don't worry, if you have any pity in you let it be for those bandits, they will not be enough left of their bodies to identify them."

As the two approached the church Vincent looked up at the sky and back at Sephiroth. "I hate to sound repetitive, but if you have any idea where Masamune is, I would call it to you now." Sephiroth shook his head his head slowly. "As I told you before, I have no need of a sword when I have the Lord's divine protection."

Vincent's eyes flicked back between the church they where approaching and Sephiroth. "Something a bit more tangible would be right about now. I don't see any thunderclouds forming, so I think God must have more pressing work to do than striking down these particular sinners with divine retribution."

Sephiroth shook his head, his right hand running along the huge cross that he held with only his left. "God will strike them down with the fire that purifies; don't you worry, he has simply chosen to wield his righteous wrath through me."

Vincent knew better then to try and argue as they came into range of the three score guns pointing out the church windows. A hurricane of gunfire assailed the two men as they walked forward in complete silence. Or close to complete silence, both men spoke a few words at the exact same thing. "It's show time."

--

"Well that was fun. A bit boring near the end, but fun none the less." Sephiroth shrugged as he stirred some ash with his right boot. "Congratulations are in order by the way, you're much better then you were when we fought against each other."

Vincent shrugged as he spun Death and Redemption back into their respective holsters. "I had a few decades to figure out how to make the most of the enhancements that being injected with mako and Jenova cells gave me, its not the shallowest of learning curves and I was just starting at it back when you were alive. By the way, just out curiosity, what kind of person builds a flame thrower into a cross?"

Sephiroth patted his silvery weapon, its reward for a job well done, before he began to once again bind it in brown paper. "Lucrecia Crescent. It's not a flamethrower, my cross contains some materia which help me better focus my magical powers, I could use it to project just any element I wanted, I just decided on fire today. She made it for me the same reasons he made you the arm and guns, I don't think she wants to loose track of us again."

Sephiroth would never know what exactly it was about fire that made him enjoy it so much, maybe it was because fire was the child of lightning, which was God's divine way of entering the world. On the other hand, Sephiroth would not rule out the suggestion he had heard several times before: that he was at least a pyromaniac.

Either way, his cross filled that church with its flames as he and his father went from level to level. Bandits hardly trained to fight people had no chance against the dangers of fire, particularly in a wooden church.

It took only about 30 minutes till Vincent and Sephiroth stood alone outside the ashes of the temple. "Really? You'd probably need a some blessed clairvoyance to explain why between me putting you in her, and you tearing her apart on the way out we more or less mutually wrote her obituary."

Sephiroth smiled. "It is in those wonderful things which are all but impossible to explain things in life which allow me to most clearly see God's hand." In response to that, Vincent removed his glasses and spat in the ashes. "Somehow I doubt this thing is going to be rebuilt in three days."

Sephiroth crossed his hands in prayer. "Let no one say I currently view myself as the second coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I merely try to emulate his teachings."


	3. Chapter 3

FN: You people with your 100+ hits in two chapters, and your gush of positive reviews (four reviews in one chapter, a new high for me thank you very much Reiko x 3, pride1289, biting bullets, and chibi-selen) YOU MAKE ME SICK! All of you except Reiko, at least, she's given me feedback across the board. but the rest of you! If you don't want to check out Ronin Trip that's fine with me, it's a different game and not all of you may have played the Suikoden series, but none of you have any excuse to come here, read this fic, leave me reviews, and then go scurry away without taking a look at Twilight Perfection a fic which was the first one I ever felt truly confident enough to post on and I spent a lot of time on.

If you've already read Twilight Perfection (Aira Slytherin) go back and at least glance over a few bits of it, and leave me a review on it since being a socially maladjusted nut job like most great writers (I'm pretty sure if I remember correctly Harper Lee became a veritable hermit after she wrote to Kill A Mockingbird) the reviews I get from you folks are one of the few sources of human interaction I have, and so words can not say how much I want them.

I know Twilight has a plethora of Original Characters (well five at least) and due to the fact that my writing style has developed two years or so ago when I started working with a good friend of mine to post it means that there are parts that I now see as having room for improvement (but what writer doesn't feel that way about any of their works when they look back at them) but still it does something (retelling the entire story of FFVII as if Sephiroth hadn't gone crazy after finding out about his past in Niblehime) which I consider a good deal more original than this story in which I taking the characters, interposing them into a vaguely Trigun like setting with Vaguely Trigun like personalities, with as you will see in this chapter a vaguely Trigun like plot (including conversations that are more or less designed along the same line as one that took place in Trigun) and of course breaking up the monotony with Trigun like fight scenes.

That said the monotony will be further when in the chapter after this one rolls around when (SPOILER skip the rest of this pargraph to avoid!) "new" villains show up who are by and large the same original characters as show up in Twilight Perfection except that they're the heroes in that story and the villains in this one and they're more less streamlined down to their bare bones quirks and with all their psychotic tendencies set one measily notch higher.

X

X

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X

X

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(X's inserted for ease of avoiding spoilers.)

Oh and by the way, I wrote this story before I realized that when you have the character say a line you're suppose to start a new sentence so that you so that should give you some idea of how much editing I need to get this tripe upgraded to actual tripe instead of being simply "tripe like" for lack of a better word.

If you can't stand original characters playing important parts, then go read (and review) Music of the Twilight, which is basically the story of Phantom of the Opera an Aeris/Sephiroth fic with Final Fantasy VII characters and a few twists (two original characters in minor rolls) which thegr8sephiroth also posted (search for him by author name to find it and Twilight Perfection) which despite an atrocious update rate due to my editor's busy schedule and computer problems, it is only one chapter away from being finished, so read and review that if you haven't already and you somehow manage to struggle our way through this chapter. So now that I've finished spewing bile all over you here's the third chapter.

In the half scream semi hysterical sarcastic words of Alfred Matthew Yankovic... "I hope you enjoy it!" Serriously I'm going to keep slamming you people because it seems to have started a Spring Time For Hitler like vibe that makes this story more popular than any of my others.

The Immortal Gunman

Chapter Three: Who I am hates who I've been.

It would be seven days before the group left the town of Blooming Flower and the town had slowly begun to get back on its feet by that time. The Cetra where the slowest when it came to realizing that the change had come, perhaps it was simply because they were less used to change either for good or ill.

Still, when no more dead bodies where to be found, when no more bullets where fired, they too realized that it was okay to stop worrying about weather or not they would live to see another sunrise. Though the town would not exactly come to accept the group, they where (even if they didn't directly say so out loud) very grateful for their involvement.

Sephiroth spent most of the week helping with one project or another, he seamed to be everywhere at once, working with a fervor that could have surprised any person who didn't know who exactly he was. He prayed over the dead bodies, and dug graves, marking them with small crosses that Lucrecia made, he helped lift a surprising amount of wood for the building of the new church, he helped scatter the ashes of the dead across the sand in hopes that perhaps it would bring some fertility to the soil. and he even hunted a little of the extremely scarce game that was left to feed some of the surviving people.

If anyone asked him he how he could managed to do so much in such a short period of time he merely said that god granted him a nearly boundless energy to help him serve his children. Vincent was not quite as helpful, but he was a bit more willing to make conversation with people than Sephiroth.

Granted the main reason he didn't spend that much time helping people was because he spent so much time with Lucrecia who spent much of her time working in a small blacksmith shop she had set up.

For her part Aeris simply helped Lucrecia with her work by gathering of the materials she needed, the materials and helping the other Cetra once again bring plantlife back to the town. At the end the week the townsfolk held a banquet in honor of the four people had saved them, however only three of the four attended, Sephiroth still had more "work" to do making tombstones, digging graves, as well or some other miscellaneous task.

The next day the four set out on a trip through the vast stretches of desert that now filled the Promise Land towards the town of Running River.

--

The young Cetra looked at Sephiroth as if he was a being from another world; it was a look Sephiroth had grown use to. Though all Cetra where spiritual by nature, few were religious, at least in the way humans would describe such a word. The Cetra were already ready to accept the word of God, they just needed to be informed of it. Sephiroth's task was simply to convince the spiritual of the power of the Holy Spirit. The boy's question was spoken with the complete innocence of youth. "What are you?"

Sephiroth took such questions in stride, for being a man of God among druids easily made one the object of much attention. He had spent a fair amount of time actually practicing his trade while his mother had cared for Aeris, and he knew it well. He smiled, and much to his surprise it was practically a genuine smile as he went down one knee to look the child in the eye (though he didn't remove his glasses). He spoke slowly and clearly. "I am a priest."

The child's eyes filled with the wonder of one who was witnessing a rare animal that none of his friends had seen or even heard about. "What's a priest?" Sephiroth shrugged completely at ease for that moment. "I am a messenger of God."

The child looked like he wanted to take a few steps back at that comment but didn't. Instead he tried out the new word he had herd like testing a new type of food. "God?" It was distorted to Sephiroth's ear but his intention was quite clear. He repeated the word a few more times, each time a question until finally he turned his attention back to Sephiroth. "What is god?"

Sephiroth looked up to the sky as he answered. "'Who is God' would be a more appropriate question. God is the being through whom we live, who makes us what we are." The child's eyes misted over slightly, as if unable to hear such words and fully comprehend them. "God...but what about the Planet? The plants and animals we eat, the water we drink, these things are created by the Planet."

Sephiroth nodded and once again locked eyes with the child. "Yes, the planet feeds us in body and mind, so God may feed us in soul. Do you know who created this Planet, or any planet for that matter?"

The child's eyes where now fully open his mouth practically agape. "God, created the Planet?" Sephiroth nodded, and gave the child a few moments to think his words over.

When the child did finally speak again with was with an odd sort of reverence. "The Planet is greater then any of us, but I can hear it, not always understand it, but hear it. If God is a being even greater then the Planet, how can I hear his voice?" Sephiroth spoke with complete reverence. "You already can, God is in each of us, even if you don't realize it. Much as the life blood of the Planet gives us the power to live, God touches each of us and gives us the power to be more than an animal ruled by instinct. The only thing you must do to hear the voice of God is to take a moment and reflect on all around you."

The boy looked up at Sephiroth with true respect in his eyes. "If we Cetra are the messengers of the Planet, and a priest is a messenger of god, doesn't that make you something greater then a Cetra?"

Sephiroth shook his head sadly. "Anyone can be a messenger of the word of God. However..." As Sephiroth spoke he very slowly began to reach for his glasses. "There are those, who have called me... an angel." Sephiroth removed his glasses for only the slightest moment allowing the child a glance at his glowing green eyes. He returned the glasses to their normal resting place in the blink of an eye, and turned around, calmly walking away from the child, a smile still on his lips.

Then his peripheral vision caught a glimpse of two small glowing cobalt gems. They were a sight Sephiroth had seen before, and he slowly walked towards them, making sure to avoid looking at them again in the process. He sat down on a small bench and could feel a slight shift in the air currents around him as another person sat down opposite him. "You smiling, now there's a sight I was right when I predicted myself never living to see."

Sephiroth nodded, still refusing to look at the speaker. "I was empty before, now I am full of God's eternal love." The other voice grew spiteful at Sephiroth's calmness. "That's not all you are full of now." "This was not a chance meeting, what are you doing here?" "Today I am a messenger."

Sephiroth's eyebrow twitched in annoyance. "A messenger from whom?" "Your parents." Sephiroth's mood went from annoyance to fury even if the change was virtual invisible. "Those two are hardly my parents, I will communicate my desires to them with weapons, not with words."

"Funny, you didn't use to be the pathetically shallow type. You must be spending too much time searching for your God, because your head is lost in the clouds. What does it matter who handed you some of your DNA when you compare it against who planned for your creation?"

There was only the slightest hint of the fury building up with Sephiroth present in his voice. "I was conceived in their mind as nothing but a living weapon." "So what, Seph? What are any of us but living weapons, to be a SOLDIER is to cast off humanity."

"Now therein lies the difference between us, you volunteered to be what you are, I was never consulted in my creation, I never asked to be anything but human."

"How funny, Jesus never asked to be the son of God, but I didn't seem to stop him." "The people wanted Jesus to be a warrior, but he chose to be a priest, I have merely made the same choice."

"You seam to be trying to have it both ways." "I have a right to be who I chose to be and no one can change that. Now tell me where they are." "What would you do if you could find them?" "If you must know and could doubtlessly guess, I will finish what my true father started, sending them both to hell." "You should show more respect to your elders."

"Why should I, they are mistaken, and it matters not who is mistaken; they must be corrected." "Even if it's you?" "I was not mistaken, this world is destined to be a perfect world, a world for Cetra. People like them. have no purpose here, if you side with them then you to must be destroyed."

"You would kill me?" "I managed to do it once already for a cause I believed to be worthy of bloodshed, why should doing it a second time be any harder?"

"Because I'm one of you now. I've been blessed with the same gifts you have been given. If I wanted to I could kill every person you can see in the blink of an eye. No wonder you went so delightfully mad, the power of death is intoxicating."

"Do not call up that which you can not put down. Do you want me to end you second life here and now? Since you've clearly sided with them it would be a pleasure." "A pleasure you will never have. Do you believe that any man can stand against the power of the ancient god who destroyed the Cetra once before?"

"The Lord shall be my shepherd, I shall fear no evil." "I see dieing once hasn't taught you any lessons about your own mortality and weakness."

"I have learned quite a lot actually, it is simply that you can't see it. God's blessings are with me, I now walk with guidance from above. Humans are truly pathetic creatures, even those of us with the advantage of being born something above the norm, we are nothing without God. God's hands guided my actions in my last life, through my bind vengeance did not those who would protect the Planet and its people emerge triumphant? The only difference is that in this life I accept and acknowledge God, I will be more than just a vessel for raw hatred. I will do God's will, and protect the innocent people of this world."

"You will fail. But then you always were the idealistic type, and you always thought big. Now before you insist on sidetracking me again, I have something to give to you."

Sephiroth heard something placed beside him and, still refusing to look at the other man picked up the object in question which turned out to be a small box. He opened it and found 12 small coins, or half of 12 small coins. The mocking voice continued it's derision.

"12 coins, or half of them as you can see. Eight for the members of Avalanche who defeated you, and four for the four of you. Soon you discover the great dangers of refusing your true mother and father. Soon 12 deadly killers, your brothers and sisters will begin hunting you and your group. If they give you even a tenth of the hell you deserve then it will be enough to make them worthwhile."

"So tell me Zack, why did they chose you to bring this to me?" "Because you can not even imagine what you did to me that makes me loath you so." "I suppose then it isn't a simple matter of me just about killing you." "Correct, you erased me from the world." "How exactly?"

The rage in Zack's voiced could not have been any stronger without igniting a literal inferno. "How many people mourned my death, how many people knew of my grave? Precious few, and because of what you are solely responsible!

What you did to Cloud Strife, making him think he was me, so that you could make him dance like your personal puppet. Do you know what it is to watch someone else not even pretending, believe that they were you? Everyone who might have ever thought they knew me would instead come to know him. No one noticed I was dead because they had him in my place.

Even Aeris, who knew I had died, she wouldn't admit it. She wouldn't tell my parents the truth. Instead she ran away, she chose to try and bury her sadness in the thoughts that Cloud was simply me. I watched a me hold her, but could never do it myself. Watched her forget me to fall into some one else's arms. I watched my name which should have gone down second to yours, fall into the pits of ignorance. You erased my name and branded Cloud Strife's on top of it. There is a pain to that which you shall never know."

"What makes you sure of that?" "How could you be forgotten? The great Sephiroth, General Sephiroth, your name has become part of history, as you have become a living legend. No one will ever forget your deeds, be they for good or ill." "If all that matters to you is what other people think, then I simply feel very sorry for you. You are less then a man. "

"I don't need your sympathy, I don't need your friendship either. I had the latter in my last life, and it killed me." "Your threats will do nothing to stop me." "Of course, you can't be stopped, you would never stop. However I have something else in mind entirely, this time I am going to erase you."

"How do you plan to do something that you yourself admitted was impossible?" "I said it couldn't be done in the last world, it will be done in this one. By the time we are done with you, there will not be so much as speck of dust left, not one person who knows your name! I suggested we start by doing the only thing you never did to me, killing your parents.

Don't go rushing off half cocked Seph, it's already too late for you to do anything to save them." Sephiroth clenched his hands in anger and he looked over at where his cross lay. Vincent and Lucrecia had gone off together, and Aeris was wandering about the town on her own. However much he might want to strangle Zack, it would have to wait.

"It's funny, there once was a time when I would have called you brother Zack, but that time is now far past. First by me standing still, and now you do it while I walk ahead leaving you behind." "Save me your excuses."

"Very well Zack, but let me leave you with a bit of advice my current trade demands I impart unto you. You refuse to realize that I have torn myself away from the two you would call my parents. To call me brother is to invite yourself into the Valentine family, a very serious mistake.

To have a Valentine after your name requires not only strength, but the respect of the others in the family. After today you will never again have my respect. The best I can give you is my pity. Proverbs 11:29 He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise at heart.' I was that fool once, too bad you insist on making it your turn."

"The words of your god are meaningless against my god who makes her existence quite clear, while yours hides in the shadows." "He that hides in the shadows has the advantage in any battle." "Shut up Seph, you always had to bring tactics into everything." By the time Sephiroth turned around, Zack was gone.

Vincent and Lucrecia had only just taken seats by the bar and were about to start a conversation with the bar keeper in the hopes of wringing some information from him when the shot rang out. Both of the new arrivals flung Vincent and Lucrecia themselves to the floor with blinding speed out of nothing more than pure instinct.

It was unnecessary though, the gunshot had achieved it's purpose, it went into the ceiling and drew attention to the man who had fired it. He had black hair much like Vincent, and much like Vincent he clearly had lost his left hand and had it replaced with a prosthetic. But instead of a claw or human looking hand, an assault rifle jutted from this man's arm.

A golden belt ran from that rifle down to his hip, and all around his chest, and his eyes burned with a fire that had nothing to do with mako. He fired another round into the ceiling again as he spoke. "MY NAME IS DYNE, AND I'VE COME TO KILL YOU VINCENT!" The other patrons, especially the Cetra tried to back away from the man, but Vincent calmly stood back up, and looked the man right in the eye. "Why do you want to kill me?"

Dyne glared at him. "You're Vincent Valentine? Don't make me laugh! You're the one who my master feared as 'The Legendary Gunman' ha! I'll eradicate you!"

He brought the assault rifle to bear and released a spray of bullets. Vincent however, brought down his foot and the chair he had been sitting in (that he had knocked down while exciting it) flew back to his hands. Vincent interposed the chair between himself and the spray of bullets, and he managed to block any of Dyne's shots that came close to hitting him, though it was left seriously dented in the process. Vincent dropped the seat and scowled at the would be assassin. "How unsophisticated. If you can't kill someone with your first shot, what makes you think your next twenty nine will have any more luck?"

Vincent jumped backwards before Dyne could let lose with another blast and he was crouched safely behind the bar before the next storm of the bullets where even halfway to him. The golden belt jumped around Dyne's waist as he fired, his face contorting with rage. "Do you know why I want to kill you? Do you know what we should be Vincent Valentine? We should be even! We both lost everything we had, including our left arms to Shinra!

We both never saw our children or wives in the last world! We both died miserably painful deaths separated from all we loved! We both mourned our loved ones so much that we couldn't live without them! WE WERE EQUAL! But in this world, suddenly it all ends! You are reunited with your loved one and child, and I am left alone! What kind of justice is that?! I will do what this world did not, make us equal once again!"

Vincent heard him speaking quite, in fact he heard more then the man thought he did. He could tell exactly where those words where coming from. He raised Redemption above the bar not bothering to look, and fired. The round tore across Dyne's face leaving a red mark as Redemption went back underneath the bar Vincent smirked in confidence as his own voice came out far more cool then Dyne's. "We are hardly equal, I'm clearly a much better shot then you."

Dyne's rage only increased. "LETS SEE YOUR 12 SHOTS MATCH MY 1200!" Vincent shrugged and jumped back up on the bar. "Where's the challenge in that? I can beat you in three shots."

Vincent quickly fired of two shots one from each of his guns. The bullets blew apart Dyne's chest leaving huge gaping holes where his lungs used to be. Dyne just laughed. "YOU CAN'T KILL ME! I'M ALREADY DEAD!" Completely unhindered by his injury, Dyne centred his gun and started blazing away at Vincent once again.

"Looks like I might need ten or so shots after all." Vincent stood completely still and fired two shots. Dyne stopped after shooting 30 bullets and paused for a moment. Vincent stood still and didn't have a single mark on him. "As I said, no skill, thirty bullets, and I could detour all the ones that might of hit me with only two of my own. Why don't you come back when you've learned to shoot like a man?"

Dyne's voice exploded. "DON'T MOCK ME, LET'S SEE YOU HANDLE FULL AUTO!" Dyne hit a switch on his arm and blazed away. Vincent ran, bullets flying past him like dust specks in a sandstorm. He dropped to the floor in a roll firing off two more shots in the process, sending Dyne's arm flailing about as large bullets knocked it momentarily aside.

Vincent stood up again both guns centred on Dyne's head. "I've had enough of your foolishness. That gun is no different then your mouth, it just spews pathetic little statements that don't mean anything." Vincent's guns roared with twin shots like the hammer of god. Dyne was ready this time, though.

His gun whipped around fast enough to block the shots with his gun before he started unloading on his opponent once again. This time a few of his shots connected, and Vincent was pushed backward by a virtual of wave of metal which came was went his way. He fell backwards onto the bar and Dyne advanced on him, somehow managing to walk forward against the overwhelming recoil of his arm.

However during the momentarily pause when Dyne stopped firing to adjust his aim, Vincent suddenly rolled over the side of the bar but not before firing another pair of shots. Dyne smiled as he looked down on the bar. "You worthless coward, your shots missed that time!" Suddenly Dyne fell backwards, and looked down at his legs, Vincent's bullets had blown his kneecaps off.

A moment later however a pair of metallic rods stuck out from Dyne's legs, and split in to five separate rods. The stuck into the ground and he lifted himself back up on his makeshift legs. His smile was horrific to behold. "I was made for just one purpose Vincent, TO MAKE THINGS EQUAL BETWEEN US!" Vincent stood up and looked right down Death's barrel. "No two lives are ever truly equal. We are who we are, now let's see how well you fight without that arm."

Three more bullets slammed into Dyne's arm, in practically the same place as Vincent's first two shots targeting it. Dyne looked at his arm and smiled. "What do you think your aim is worth in the end Vincent? All they managed to do was dent my manual reload, my arm's automatic reload function will still let me rip you to shreds."

Another voice came from behind Dyne. "If you say so, but now you've only got thirty rounds left." Before the voice had finished speaking, a knife was lodged itself into Dyne's golden belt not far below his arm's reloading slot. The short haired man turned around and came face to face with Lucrecia smiling and his anger grew even greater. "If all I can do is kill you, THAT WILL HAVE TO BE ENOUGH!"

Vincent watched helplessly as Dyne emptied the last of the rounds that he could load into his arm into Lucrecia's body until the only sound that filled the tavern was the clicking of an empty gun. Vincent's eyes burned with incredible rage, however Dyne was prepared for his reaction, as Vincent came practically flying out over the bar Dyne reached into the brown jacket he wore with his right hand and pulled out a grenade.

Two things happened only a fraction of a second apart, one of them was the sound of Dyne's sneering voice as he yanked the grenade's pin. "I KNOW YOU'RE OUT OF BULLETS!" As the grenade left his hand Vincent herd another voice utter second cry. "Vincent use your third gun!" He didn't know how he could be hearing Lucrecia's voice, she was dead. More to the point what was his third gun suppose to be?

Vincent was on his feet and into the air sailing towards Dyne both men's eyes blazing with hate as the grenade sailed straight at him. Vincent knew he couldn't dodge that grenade in midair, and then he knew just what he had to do. He simply let go of Death.

Then slowly his left hand turned like a rotating screw. His hand didn't come off, but it did move forward and to the side allowing a cascade of machinery to take its place. Then his hand dropped below his arm, and it was now was perfectly position to pull a trigger, which was connected to a gun barrel emerging from out from his arm socket. He was somehow still able to manipulate that hand, he pulled the trigger, the gun fired a bullet, and then time no longer stood still.

The bullet smashed into the grenade which exploded in cloud of shrapnel. A cloud Vincent emerged from more or less completely unharmed. His foot connected perfectly with Dyne's chest and the man fell to the floor. Vincent jammed the gun's barrel practically right through Dyne's eye socket, the look in his red eyes made whatever hatred Dyne had been able to call forth seem like nothing but a child's temper tantrum.

"SHE'S DEAD! THE ONLY WOMAN I COULD EVER LOVE IS DEAD AGAIN!" Dyne spat some black oily substance in Vincent's face. "Who cares?" Vincent kicked his fallen foe in the chest. "DO YOU THINK I'M JUST GOING TO KILL YOU! DO YOU THINK I'LL GRANT YOU THE SWEET RELEASE OF DEATH AFTER THAT? YOU PISSED OFF THE WRONG MAN YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF TRASH! NEVER ANGER A TURK! I'LL MAKE YOU BEG FOR DEATH BEFORE THIS IS OVER, WEEKS, MONTHS, I'LL HANG YOU UP TO DRY LIKE A FISH!"

Vincent wanted to give into his greatest inner deamon, Chaos, but he knew Chaos would tare this man limb from limb in a matter of moments. If he was going to do this slowly then he'd have to do it as himself. It wasn't fair, that she should be ripped from his hands yet again. By some idiot who didn't even understand the way the world worked. Just as Vincent was ready to kick the man again he heard her voice again. "Civilized men just shoot rabid dogs. He isn't worth your time."

Vincent spun around, and his eyes where astounded, his mouth fell agape at what they saw. Lucrecia was standing back up, carefully using one of the bar stools as a support, the holes in her chest slowly growing shallower by the moment. Finally only pink skin remained where the bullets had gone through her body. As she stood straight up she met Vincent's astonished gaze and managed a weak smile. "This body cost me my life last time we where together, but it looks like it saved it this time around."

Vincent s mouth moved like a fish out of a water, as she continued to explain. "It may have been intended for Sephiroth, but the mako and Jenova cells that Hojo injected into my womb didn't all stay there." Vincent nodded and turned back to the waste of life named Dyne that was still under his feet. "I was wrong Dyne.. there are two differences between us one is that I'm a much better shot then you. The second however is much more important, you give the word 'Love' a bad name."

Another bullet from Vincent's third gun finished the job, and the madman's body law completely still. Vincent kicked the body one last time. "Good riddance to bad rubbish." Lucrecia nodded her agreement. "I guess I should have told you about that particular feature first chance I got, but I thought it would make a good surprise." Vincent nodded slowly. "I think you can consider both of us surprised."


	4. Chapter 4

FN: I'd like to thank my editor thegr8sephiroth for dropping in and leaving me a review not to mention Reiko x 3 as always. The rest of you people with your as near 200 hits as doesn't make a difference still make me sick. Thegr8sephiroth just posted a quick 3000 or so word fic called I've Got No Beef With which even though its a post Twilight Perfection Fic, all you really need to know is that in Twilight Sephiroth redeemed himself as a hero, fell in mutually in love with Aeris, protected her life, while she protects his sanity, Sephiroth found out that Vincent is his father, and Sephiroth grew a pair of feathery wings (one white one black) while defeating Jenova in North Crater. After which Meteor gets blown up by Holy without doing any damage and the two (Aeris and Sephiroth) get married and move into to the house where she was born in Icicle Village. NONE OF THE OCS PRESENT IN TWILIGHT APPEAR IN IT!

Speaking of OC's this chapter should do a marvellous job of sending my hitcount plummeting like crippled rat with a brick tied to its tail tossed off the stern of the Titanic because one of the OC's in Twilight pops up in this chapter, and if there's one thing I've noticed its that nothing makes you readers abandon fic faster then including orrigional characters in your work for reasons that I suppose I can understand since 1) you came here to read about the characters in the game and 2) most of the exist only to hog the glory that should rightfully belong to the characters from the game. I'll admit that the OCs I use in Ronin Trip fall quite thoroughly in category number 2 since the entire fic is basically nothing but them systematically kicking the ass of each games villains since they're six nigh-immortal demigods who collectively have had more than two millenniums worth of practice when it comes to bringing Boot A to bear on Buttocks B without the actual main (five), but frankly I think there's something wonderful charming about a story that doesn't bother trying to hide the fact that the heroes are going to win when all is said and done.

What I can't understand is why you people think quality must differ so much from one story to another written by the same author. So here's your task, after you finish this chapter, click on the number which represents how many reviews this fic has gotten (at the moment 8) and then click on the name (thegr8sephiroth) and check out "I've Got No Beef With You" for a delightful romp through the soft and fluffy side of Aeris and Sephiroth hooking up, a concept that if you couldn't abide then you wouldn't have gotten this far in the fic. Then leave a review after you read that story, because I don't have thegr8sephiroth's log in password I can't keep track of who has read those stories beyond who has left reviews on them even just a "Good story" will do. If not one of the hits I get on chapter this chapter translates to reviews on that story I might very well try to chew my own face off with rage, Aira Slytherin I suggest you take that particular bullet since you actually enjoyed Twilight Apparently.

And now you can finally put away your bileproof umbrellas and prepare to enjoy the next chapter.

The Immortal Gunman chapter 4 Hungry Like the Wolf

Sephiroth closely examined the small half of a bronze coin on the bar before slowly picking it up, and sliding it into the box Zack had given him, leaving 11 coins uncompleted. He looked at the other three occupants of the bar, Vincent, Lucresia and Aeris, everyone else having fled. "This bodes both well and ill for our cause. We are no longer hunting Jenova, Jenova is hunting us. That said, she has just missed us with her first shot, the only one she had which could take us by surprise. We simply need to avoid her next eleven, and then we will have our shot at her.

Lucresia nodded as she adjusted the straps of her backpack. "I think whatever Jenova sends at us next will take considerably more than simply knives to stop. I think its about time I got to work building another briefcase." Recognition flashed in Sephiroth's eyes, and a hint of fear in Aeris'.

Recognition in Sephiroth's eyes quickly became recommendation in his voice. "You haven't needed one since I obtained my cross, but I think you're right. We all need to arm ourselves for what comes next.

This is the next evolution of war, huge standing armies were replaced by mechanized forces, and as of today, and then now they are all but obsolete against warriors like ourselves. I doubt Jenova will be stupid enough to throw any unenhanced opponents against us. This is to be a battle between angels and deamons, mortals would only needlessly crowd the battlefield. I'm going to go seek God's guidance for the coming battle, even information is a weapon when properly wielded."

Sephiroth stood alone far past the outskirts of town, watching the wind slowly change the features of the desert that surrounded him. His glasses prevented any stray speck of dust from getting in his eyes, though it proved slightly irritating to have small bits of sand continually slam up against his skin.

He leaned against his cross and closed his eyes tilting his neck downward slightly. "Lord, from your right hand was the seeds sown from which various worlds grew. Through your left hand is the thread of every life cut, may my life hand be at least a pale imitation of your own, for the dangers ahead are plentiful. Amen."

He opened his eyes then looked off into the desert. "I am finished. You can come out anytime now, I know your there." A man suddenly came into being amid the sandstorms, his clothes were forest green, but his hair was an unruly red. It was tied backwards in a lose rat tail.

Sephiroth scowled at him. "You aren't like the one my father faced, not even close." The man nodded slowly and spat in the sand. "Allow me to offer you my water as a show of respect. The man who your sire fought was nothing but a cowardly dog. I however intend to slay you in fair an honerable combat so as to gain glory such as you can not imagine. At least if I have been told the truth about you."

Sephiroth looked the man straight in the eye. "What have you been told about me? Because at the moment I think you are one very confused Cetra." The man pumped his arms in jubilation. "Yes! You can tell the difference with but a single look.. It might just be true that before me stands the last White Howler..."

Sephiroth shrugged, refusing to allow himself to be pigeonholed by Jenova or any of her servants. "Names come and go, what does that one imply?" The man smiled, his teeth glistening unnaturally. "A White Howler is one who has walked the Black Spiral, twice. Twice you've gone down that cursed path. The first time it ended as you came face to face with the Wyrm that being you know as 'Jenova' who embodies naught but suffering and hatred.

The second time is after having your mind violated by one who's very presence can make full grown warriors yelp like frightened puppies, you turned your back on her and walked right back out to your true kith and kin. I most sincerely doubted that there were any left in this world or any other."

Sephiroth couldn't help but smile. "You are correct, like our lord Jesus Christ I have visited the deepest pits of hell, and returned, at least metaphorically. So if you came hear desiring to meet a White Howler, why are you in Jenova's service?"

The man shook his head regretfully. "I am not in her services, only those weak of mind and spirit follow her. My heart would be filled with boundless joy to see her served the same dish in this life that she was in her last one. The weak are to be granted natures justice, to be cut off at the stem before their pathetic flowers can bloom."

Sephiroth held out his hands welcomingly. "Well then, we have a great deal in common, so who are you and why are you hear to kill me?" The man's green eyes slowly darkened to a amberish color. "My name is Alexander Diamondclaw, but given our situation you may call me "Alex" and as for why I'm going to kill you, do you know who Fenris is?" Sephiroth shook his head. "Forgive me for not knowing the customs and rituals of my hosts, please enlighten me."

Alex slowly ran his tongue along the front of his teeth. "It is a shame you don't know who he is, for he and you have a great deal in common. Fenris is the god of war, and the god of wolves. He was feared even by other gods, not so much because he was invincible, but because he refused to give up. Every time he was struck down he was reborn in the body of his greatest followers, and took revenge on those who had killed him. My people worship Fenris close to exclusively, though we still revere the planet."

That's when Sephiroth saw it, a small feral gleam in Alex's bright eyes. Something he had never seen in the eyes of a Cetra, it was a gleaming lust for battle. It was not an evil lust to cause pain as he saw in the eyes many of humans, it was simply a lust to test the strength of ones blade against that of a foes, to prove oneself superior, a lust he had gotten used to seeing whenever he looked in a mirror.

Sephiroth's glowing green eyes pierced Alex's soul for a moment, and then he knew. "Jenova told me that people like you were nothing but a myth, that the Cetra had no soldiers which was why I needed to wash humanity from the world."

Alex beckoned Sephiroth onwards. "The Wyrm killed all of us off in the last world, but in this one it was not the glorious death of battle, but a despicable act of fratricide. We were assaulted by our own 'brothers and sisters' if you can call them that. What stands before you is the last of the True Cetra."

Sephiroth's eyebrow twitched as he glared at Alex. "What gives you the right to define yourself as a 'true' Cetra?" Alex's smile did not diminish at all. "I'm glad you asked, I am a True Cetra, because the Planet has accepted me as one of its own, allowing me to take the shape and use the gifts of its children. In return, I and those like me, when they existed, kept the Lifestream stocked with fresh souls."

Sephiroth knew that if they did start trying to kill one another Alexander would be a harder opponent than he looked. "We don't need to fight, I am a man of God, and I have little use or respect for those who's minds are clogged with unneeded prejudice. Why don't you help me destroy Jenova?"

Alex growled, a deep guttural sound that seemed thoroughly out place coming from a Cetra. "It's so simple from where you're standing, you can still hear your god! I haven't heard from Fenris since the day I was reborn in this world!"

Sephiroth sighed, his voice low and coaxing. "Those times when you see only one set of footprints on the ground, are the days I carried you my child." Alex's balled his hands into fists. "I don't want to hear it! Do not wish to hear of Promised Lands, of Eden, or of anything else! I am a disciple of Fenris, the battlefield is my temple, the mixed cries of the dead and dieing my hymns! I wish for one thing and one thing alone, the honor of a victory from a well fought, and a well slain foe!"

Sephiroth did not give up. "Why? There are more then two paths to the future." Alex's fingernails dug into his fist drawing a small trickle of blood. "Be silent! You're the same as me, you've proven that you could have betrayed the Wyrm and time you wished! That look in your eyes, nothing could stop you from getting something you wanted, why not kill her and be a hero to your people?" Sephiroth looked down at the ground and for a moment he felt weak. "Too much pain. They had caused me too much pain, I couldn't forgive Shinra."

Alex's fist unclenched and his blood dripped along the ground. "EXACTLY! The Cetra cast out my kind long before any of you humans arrived! Even when the Promise Land was in full bloom, we were hated and cast out, and why? My kind where the last to fall prey to the wasting sickness which spread among the Cetra, we lead the charge when the others could barely walk, and do you know what we found waiting for us? The Wyrm was nothing but a facade, she is just like a polecat all perceived threat and no substance. We defeated her quicker then my pack could go through a heard of caribou. It didn't cure the sickness though; I died in my sleep, a horrible slow death, a death I never want to face again. That is why I'm here, this time I die with honor on the field of battle. This time my soul shall fly straight to Valhalla rather then being chained in these fields of slaughter!"

Sephiroth removed his glasses and put them in one of his robe's pockets. "If you wish a death on the battlefield, then I will give it to you." Sephiroth reached for his cross and Alex shook his head . "I can not call on Fenris' direct aid, if you an honerable foe, then you would refrain from using that totem to your god." Sephiroth's hand drew away from his cross as he mentally prepared to make use of a weapon.. "Very well, a battle between generals rather than between gods. You, me, our hands, and our gifts from the planet."

Alex's face was so saturated with battle lust that he was almost salivating. "Excellent, let it begin!" As he spoke, Alex waved his hands, and suddenly from underneath the sand rose up green vines that wrapped themselves around Sephiroth's arms pinning against his chest. Sephiroth was barely able to bite back a curse in response to this surprise attack. "You can grow plant life that easily, and you use it to fight?

"Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes! I take every weapon the planet can give me, just like you!" Sephiroth frowned slightly but not at his condition. "So this is what she could do if she truly focused... how interesting."

Sephiroth then stomped his right foot on the ground causing a small knife to emerged from the heel of his boot, on high kick later he was free to move his arms as he pleased. "On second thought, just because I'm not going to use my cross doesn't mean Ill refrain from any other weapon."

Alex leaped at Sephiroth as the silver haired man who somehow "kicked" the knife (probably due to some launching mechanism in his boot) directly at his foe. Alex twisted in midair and the knife sailed right by him. He came down towards Sephiroth feet first, except that even though Sephiroth had missed with his knife, he easily seized hold of Alex's feet and hurled him a fair distance across the desert.

Sephiroth looked down at his foe with a patronizing scowl on his face. "You never really bothered to train in how to fight before, you have no chance of defeating me." Alex's voice dropped another few octaves towards a growl. "I am aware of that, the way a salmon knows it will die after it lays its eggs, a bee will die after it stings, my own life means nothing next to the task I lay it down for!" As Alex spoke, his body seamed to shimmer in the sand and he rose to his feat he was, for lack of a better word, different.

He was now close to the same height as Sephiroth, and a strange reddish brown hair (a near perfect match for the color of the sand) grew all over his skin. Alex let out a powerful howl to the moon in the sky and it was answered. Five other wolves with fur the color of dust came into being, though such beasts would have been dreadfully hard to spot if he hadn't heard their call and known where to look. Alex gave them a cautioning glance and spoke calmly to them. "I die so that you can live brothers and sister, do not take part in my battle. Your alpha commands it."

The wolves knelt to the ground whimpering like scared dogs, lowering their heads, and watching Alex with intense glances. Alex raised his fist and a bolt of lightning might as well have struck it for blue electricity flowed through his body before it was discharged towards his foe. Sephiroth was blown backwards, but not off his feet, only the marks in the sand as he had skidded backwards were proof of the strike. Sephiroth leapt forward and glared right at Alex. "May god have mercy on your soul."

With those words the priest became a blur of liquid quicksilver as he came at Alex. Only the black of his boots, and gloves separated themselves from that blur as he struck. Alex rode out that storm of blows as if his body was made of rock instead of flesh. Then with complete precision as Sephiroth launched yet another strike, Alex dropped to the ground as if he had been wounded, but instead he swept his leg along the ground to trip up Sephiroth.

Even though Sephiroth's legs were nocked out from under him, he didn't land in the sand. Instead as he fell his arms shot out, and he balanced on them long enough to push himself back up into the and land on his feet again.

As he landed however he was assailed by a blast of frozen wind and chunks of ice. Small shards of ice stung his face even more painfully then the sand had. Through that storm a fist followed, aimed right at Sephiroth's face. Once again however even with a distraction to pave the way for it, Sephiroth managed to catch his foes appendage before he could land a blow. "I don't know how you can still see." Sephiroth raised his head, his eyes clamped shut. "Do wolves rely on sight alone to find their foes? I heard you coming."

A gloved hand slammed into Alex's chest and then a booted foot nailed the Cetra in the face knocking him on his back. Alex spat out some blood and smiled. "I haven't had to go all the way in a very, very, very, long time. Whatever happens next Sephiroth, smile for you will be the last being on this world to ever see it happen."

Sephiroth opened his eyes and pulled Alex from the ground by the ruff of his green shirt. "Get this show over with, your not as fast as me, your not as well trained as me, why keep trying?" Alex's smiled even as Sephiroth lifted him so his feet couldn't touch the ground. "Because I have not yet begun to fight."

Alex practically exploded in Sephiroth's hands, and Sephiroth let go just in time. Alex's body twisted and contorted on the sand, his clothing was reduced to shreds, and then anything that could have once been called a Cetra vanished.

Sephiroth's jumped backwards, getting some space between him and his foe was doubtlessly a very good idea at the moment. "That's the game you play, just like a wolf you want to weed out the old and the sick first.." The words that responded where barely understandable, as if the mouth that uttered them was not meant for human speech. "The true hunt... begins."

A huge paw the color of sand came at him trying to pin him to the ground, but Sephiroth dodged it. Then he followed on his evasive tactic by leaping right at the and slammed his shoulder into whatever he could find that wasn't made of dirt or sand. That was how Sephiroth found himself on top of a beast at least 10 feet tall, with fur the exact same color as the sand, and it was much more angry than hurt.

It rolled over throwing its unwanted rider onto the sand and then tried to leap on top of him, which was exactly what Sephiroth expected. He slammed his other foot into the ground, and a knife came out from his boot her wore on his left foot.

He drove that foot upwards, straight into the beast's chest as it landed on top of him, straight into the things heart. The beast smiled a horrible grin, its voice an unearthly growl. "You think you can kill me by piercing my body with steel? Your weapon hurts only a little more then a pinprick, now let me sharpen my claws on you!"

The beast's huge paw came arched downwards at a pinned target with force that could easily have split Sephiroth's skull in half. Luckily Sephiroth wasn't held completely immobile by the creatures body and by leaning to the right quickly the claws only left dug through sand instead of flesh. "You're more slippery then an eel!"

Sephiroth drove his hands into the ground and suddenly the beast was tossed backwards as a huge shockwave went through the sand below them. The entire world seamed to be shaking itself apart as Sephiroth managed to stand back up, and as his hands left the ground the tremors stopped.

Once again he around slowly trying to catch sight of a beast whose fur almost perfectly matched its surrounding. "This hunt ends now, I thought my days of killing Cetra was over, but since you go to your grave gladly I will make an exception." Sephiroth closed his eyes and he waited. Then a few moments later his stillness gave way to sudden motion as he raised his elbow upward sand jumped back, driving his into the creature's face before it had a chance to open its jaws.

Unlike without he knife this cry caused the creature to loose with a wordless cry of pain. Sephiroth opened his eyes, the red blood coming from the creature's broken nose gave it away. "CURSED MOON METAL!" Sephiroth nodded as he looked at the small crosses designs on the sleaves of his outfit. "My mother said that they should be made of real silver, which give me one more reason to thank her..."

Sephiroth then wordlessly fell on the beast, and drove the small cross on his outfit's left sleave sideways into the beast's chest as he fell like the hammer of God. He brought his other arm around and slammed it into the beast's jaw. Both times when the silver cross came into contact with the beast a horrible sound resulted.

It only took one more blow, Sephiroth struck with the middle of his right arm at the creature's already damaged face and this time he managed to force some part of the beast's shattered nose backwards into its own brain.

Sephiroth stood back up, and the five wolves slowly padded their way over to the side of their fallen comrade. They looked at him, and then at Sephiroth, and each of them went on their bellies before him.. Then they stood up, as they walked off they might as well have vanished into the sand.

That was when he saw it, a small half a coin glinting amid the turmoil. Sephiroth bent down and picked it up, he felt it over carefully, it was the same color as his hair. He leaned against his cross and spoke to no one who was present at the moment, but this time he was clearly not communing with god.

"You gave him a silver coin. It must have been on his mind every moment he held it, you have a real love of hurting people you bastard. That's what makes us different, I don't mind killing to make the world a better place, but you just want to hurt people. Your days are numbered, for a true servant of God cannot be stopped by any mortal force."

Sephiroth slowly fingered the coin with one hand as he removed his unbroken sunglasses and slipped them back on over his eyes. "I believe in God, but that does not mean I close my heart to the beauty of how Cetra view the world. Fenris, may your disciple be guided to your side, he was loyal to the end." With that Sephiroth picked up the cross, and he was soon gone from sight as well.


	5. Chapter 5

FN: I include the following scene in my ever increasing desire to say that I hate you (300+ hits bah humbug) all and to make you tell me to stop posting this fic. It does nothing to improve the quality of the fic, in fact it probably decreases it. It will make just about no sense unless you've read Twilight Perfection, and even then it only makes a twisted sense. I would have put it after the end of this chapter, but then I realized that because no one has reviewed "I've got no beef with you" that I despite you all, and don't want to keep posting this fic that you all manage to enjoy so much.

A lesser author might let the quality of the fic itself drop, say by refraining from spellchecking them and rewriting them, but I desire more than to simply make my fic bad, I will make it a master piece of incomprehension like Silent Hill, or the ending of Metal Gear Solid Two!

So in the interest of destroying your enjoyment, behold OC's stealing the spotlight from the main characters, the same thing that makes so many of you hate Twilight, at least I assume you hate it since none of you have reviewed it. Oh, and originally this piece was going to go at the end, but it makes more chronological sense for it to come first. So in other words all you masochistic readers proceed and enjoy, if you want to skip ahead to the start of the fic where I include the chapter title be my guest.

--

"Subject Green A's readings are all negative." The black haired man in a white labcoat said those words as if he was noting nothing more important than a light switch having been turned off. A young man dressed all in red didn't feel the same way. "You mean Alex is dead?"

The black haired man turned around and glared at the one dressed in red. "Of course that's what it means Red J. Almost a shame in its way, I would have so loved to do a proper after mission dissection of him.

That Gnosis he was babbling on about, I could have cut away pieces of his body untill I found out what allowed him to control it. Oh well, it is not as if I need to design any more projects for a while." Red J clenched his hands into fists. "Damn it, don't sound so calm about this! Green A, no, Alex wasn't like Black D, I liked him, he grew those blue flowers for me, he told me stories."

The black haired man sighed. "How tedious, here Red J just let your AD make it all better." Hands began to race across the keyboard and a new screen popped upon the monitor. "Abstract Daddy units readings: Red J's serotonin production at 50 of maximum."

As more keys were pressed the numbers promptly climbed to seventy percent. Red J's face became a distorted mask, as a smile with no humor behind it. " No daddy! Please! Don't!"

The black haired man cackled as he pressed more buttons. "What's the matter? Do you want to waste your time by being sad? Bah! Feelings are nothing more than the way the brain interprets the arrival of certain chemicals. Even in human beings they're worthless and you aren't human to start with.

From this terminal I can interface with the AD unit attached to your brain stem, giving me full control over what chemicals reach your mind. I can make you feel the bitterest hatred, I can make you feel the greatest love, and with your mother fine tunning your desires, there is nothing you would not for our cause.

Looking back I can hardly believe that I trusted to something so random as human reproduction to give me a subject like Silver One. A random mix of 92 chromosomes, how could I have ever put my faith in something so imprecise?

Does it not make pride swell within your breast to know how perfect you are Red J? If it doesn't I can make it..." Red J's stayed silent, but his body relaxed considerably as a gloved hand was placed on his shoulder, and a female voice joined the conversation. "Doctor if you play with your toys too much they're going to get broken."

The black haired man did not look up from his keyboard. "I didn't ask your opinion White M." The woman with her arm on Red J's shoulder stood up perfectly straight. "I know, that's why I am now asking for yours. Permission to go on one last 'leave' before my number comes up one way or another, and take Red J with me?"

The black haired man made dismissive motions with his right hand. "Go, go. My scanners will detect it if you try to run away, and the results will be 'unpleasant' to say the least if you refuse to properly pay for the gifts I have given you, including the gift of life in your case Red J."

White M gave a quick salute and then turned around more or less pulling Red J with her. "Come on, lets go listen to Black M play, that always makes you feel better." As the door to the lab sealed behind them, Red J finally spoke up, pointing his gloved hands towards his eyes.

"Look, tears! I don't care what he does to me, I can be sad if I wanted to, I'm real, I'm sad about Alex, I don't want him to be dead... I want him to come back." White M wrapped her hands around Red J's shoulders. "I'm not the one you have to convince on that score, and you're wasting your time talking to your 'father' on that particular issue.

Now, like I said we can either listen to Black M play, or we can go outside, the weather is as good as it ever gets around here, I'll get the frisbee out of my room and we can kill a few hours."

Red J shook his head feverishly. "No, it doesn't feel right to be having fun so soon after what happened to Alex..." White M broke their hug. "Don't worry about what happened to him. You know how Cetra are, and Alex in particular, is a far, far better thing and all that. He's in a better place now, that's for sure."

FN: And now back to the main characters.

The Immortal Gunman

Chapter 5: I want something else, to get through this, semi charmed kind of life.

Sephiroth held up the box, now two coins where complete. "You realise what this means right?" Aeris gave a small nod. "Well for one things it means that there are now only 10 of them left." Sephiroth sighed and shook his head. "No, it means that we can't stay together."

Vincent looked at Sephiroth across the table they were seated at with mild irritation. "Whatever happened to the saying about there's strength in numbers?" Even though his sunglasses it was possible to see the sudden glint in Sephiroth's eyes. "That's amature tactics 101, I'm considering a much more advanced curriculum. Sticking together is what they want us to do.

Those two, Alexander and Dyne, they specifically wanted me and my father, they where trained on how best to fight us. If we split up, then the remaining ten will have a harder time finding whichever one of us they were specially trained to kill."

Lucrecia slowly looked around the table. "We're something of a rather easy to remember occurrence, if they follow us for a while the tales will add up." Her son was completely unperturbed by this reasonable objection. "They could do that, and that I why I have a plan to counter it."

With those words Sephiroth removed a small map that if not being exactly precise showed the general location of towns. Sephiroth traced his hand down along it slowly. "We split up into two groups of two. But we don't go off in opposite directions, we keep the general same path, but visiting different towns. At preset locations we change group members, that will keep those who hunt us on their toes.

Even better, it gives us a chance to double back and make the hunters the hunted." Aeris slowly ran her hand along the map as well, keeping it constantly a few inches behind Sephiroth's. "It seems pretty complicated, but if you think we can do it, we might have a shot at it." Sephiroth chuckled as he stopped tracing lines and started pointing out destinations. "It's rather easy the truth be told. The towns don't have names on this map, but Aeris and I will go here, while you two go here.

Then here we meet up and switch group members, we can decide which ones once we arrive." Lucrecia didn't seem about to object with being parried with Vincent and vice versa, but it was hard to tell of what Aeris thought of being alone with Sephiroth.

All things considered though she didn't seam about to complain out loud at the very least. "Safe journey son." Sephiroth pulled his hand from the map and began to roll it up. "May you go with the everlasting love and protection of God."

Vincent looked down at his two handguns and then at Sephiroth's cross. "Nice mantra, does it work?" A complacent shrug. "That's entirely up to you, but believers will be redeemed in one of the lives to come."

Vincent hung his head and let a long sigh. "You know, I think I preferred your atheist side." Sephiroth stood up and placed both hands upon his cross. "That is a shame, for when I opened my eyes to all of the gifts God has granted me, I found myself utterly unable to deny his existence.

That I am here alone, is proof enough of his everlasting love and mercy. The same mercy I wish to show to others wherever I go through my cross." Lucrecia chuckled but Vincent simply looked mortified and spoke slowly. "I somehow doubt that their is any kind of mercy in your cross Sephiroth. But it is well suited for what we will face."

A few generic goodbyes later the groups departed, Sephiroth and Aeris by car (Aeris lacking Jenova cells and mako enhancement was badly suited to walking in the desert for long periods of time) Vincent and Lucrecia by foot.

--

It was odd for Aeris, to be seated in a car across from the man who had killed her once before. But then it was hard to say that the man she sat next to had killed her, in a way he had simply been the weapon with Jenova had killed her. There was a horrible silence between them untill Aeris finally broke it.

"Something is troubling me." Sephiroth didn't take his eyes off the "road" if you could call what they were driving on by such a name. "What thoughts burden your mind little Eve?"

Whenever Sephiroth was speaking only as a priest, he would call people either "Adam" or "Eve" depending on their gender and as Aeris was about half a foot shorter than him "little" was relatively apt adjective. It was a slightly annoying fact, but at the same time it was useful as well. "A sin."

Sephiroth took his right hand off the wheel to finger his paper covered cross in the backseat. "Are you in need of a confession?" "More like a conversation" "Which sin?" Aeris' eyes looked down on the cars floor. "That original sin through which we all come into existence."

Sephiroth's eyes widened. "Have you committed such a sin?" Aeris shook her head firmly. "No, but that sin is passed to me by my parents... Especially in my case. I can't help but wonder if my parents where never meant to have been together."

Sephiroth return both of his hands to the wheel. "I have spent many hours thinking similar thoughts little Eve." Aeris glared at Sephiroth in irritation. "It's not the same between you and me, not like that! You where conceived a perfectly normal person, between two perfectly normal people."

Sephiroth just looked silently at Aeris, and she promptly rethought her statements. "Okay, maybe not, but still... you where conceived by humans, made a human, you might have been born different from anyone else, but untill that first needle went into Lucrecia's wombs you were no different than anyone else.

But I am the first half Cetra, and I wonder if a being like me was meant to exist. I seem to have bought myself the worst of both worlds, I am accepted neither among humans nor among Cetra." Sephiroth black gloved hand somehow came to rest on Aeris' shoulder. "If there was ever one mistake the Cetra made it was refusing you little Eve. It was a choice they made under painful circumstances, painful ones like those we will never known.

While this may have been our home for 40 years, it has been there's for 4,000. They where afraid, and fear makes people irrational. It was one of the many times knowing what they did to you is one of those moments that reminds me why I hold a lose interpretation of the Bible."

Aeris held back caustic comments about just how lose his interpretation was, especially on certain commandments. "What do you mean?" Sephiroth snarled slightly, once again a gleam in his eyes that not even his sunglasses could cloak. "What they did to you, it reminds me of 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone.' I believe in translation, or even in the first writing that parts of the Bible where left out, or rewritten, or just mistaken by those who wrote them."

In the brief pause Sephiroth might as well have read Aeris' mind. "Yes, that commandment about killing is just a well meaning suggestion, not a strict code, a more appropriate version of it would be, 'All life is precious, do not kill without reason or needlessly' but sadly the good book seems to struggle with the idea that there are shades of grey and silver at times."

Aeris nodded slowly. "Then what do you think Jesus should have told the sinless before they cast their first stones?" Sephiroth smiled slightly as he removed his glove from her shoulder. "Jesus turned and faced the crowd. he stood in front of the women about to be stoned and spoke 'You who have lifted no finger to help this woman, what right do you have to lift that finger to accuse her with now?'"

Silence filled the air between them again. Then Aeris slowly looked up at Sephiroth almost pleadingly. "Tell me what you told me that time before.

Tell me again before I stop doubting and start believing that I can't do anything." Sephiroth nodded, and instantly began to speak in that impossible way that only Sephiroth could go over the past.

He made it sound like he was simply reciting things of ages past , anyone's past, or even another Scripture from the bible, instead of his own past. "Let me tell you the story of mindless faith, and underestimated sacrifice."

--

The women slowly walked to the center of the platform in the middle of a huge city. Or what once might have been a huge city, now all that was left of it was a few buildings. However those building that did remain, were in surprisingly good condition. Ivy vines grew along them, but it did not grow as it to overtake or corrupt the buildings, the vines grew as if they belonged there, as if they complimented the structures.

In there way those vines were a last testament to the Cetras' communion with the planet, but they would not be the only testament to that communion today. She kneeled on the platform, kissed the ground, and then she spoke. "You can come out anytime."

The man descended in all but complete and utter silence, she the nearness of his body as he arrived more than she heard his arrival. "You come to your death like a moth to the flames." She slowly turned around and looked up at General Sephiroth, face to face, and instantly knew how foolish she was.

He stood twice her height (but then she was kneeling) and she was just tall enough so that when she looked straight ahead, her eyes focused with painful clarity on Masamune's hilt. He only had to calmly reach backwards, grip that hilt, pull, and then the blade that had ended so many lives would end hers as well.

She had seen him before, but when it was just the two of them alone together, it was being trapped in a cage with a rabid dog She looked up at him, and somehow managed to utter coherent words. "You're here to kill me?"

Sephiroth chuckled as he looked down at her. "Me? Sent here on a task as base a mere assassination? I don't lower myself to the level of you humans, my trade is that of wholesale slaughter, I specialize in killing humans by the dozen, by the hundred, by the thousand! My mother sending me to kill one single opponent would be like order a wolf to guard a mousehole!"

Aeris couldn't help but wonder from what hidden depth she found the strength to speak clearly. "Then what are you here for?" "I'm here to protect that planet from the unprecedented danger humans represent. You are a nieve fool half-Cetra, if you truly believe that there can be peace between your parent's races." Aeris' legs felt like rubber, making her very glad that she was already kneeling.

"The simple fact that I exist, that proves there can be piece between the two." Sephiroth's face went from being oddly handsome and utterly lacking emotion, to an ugly sneer filled with hate in the blink of an eye. "Oh there can be peace! Years and years of peace! Years, and decades, and centuries, and millenniums, and eons of peace! Bought with the lives of our

The dead have no ability to argue with the decisions of the living, and soon we will all be dead. You, me, and my mother, that is all that are left. Even your bloodline is already corrupted with human, even if you and I mated, I would still be the last true Cetra born on this planet. Even if that child lived, even with our incredible lifespan, in the end only humans will be left.

Like cockroaches they fester and breed. If they are not eradicated while we have the strength, they will despoil this entire world!" Aeris could feel tears coming to her eyes. "Then what would you do? Kill off every single human? Then what Sephiroth, leave this Planet devoid of intelligent life when you die?"

Sephiroth shook his head, and from the look in his eyes Aeris finally understood why Zack at once told her "Sephiroth always has a plan" while the two had been dating. "No, when I harness the power of the Lifestream and become a god, the Cetra will be reborn! I will take that which has been so unjustly given to the humans and give it back to those to whom it belongs!"

Through supreme force of will, Aeris held her ground. "It doesn't have to come to that. If you just gave humans a chance..." Sephiroth's face was once again an uncompromising blank slate. "I gave humans a chance half-Cetra, and they spat in my face.

You are blind to the corruption, the greed, the pain they cause each other, the pain they wish to cause us. From the very day I was born, the day I became conscious of my life, I knew I was different from the pathetic humans that surrounded me. They hoped to study me, refine me, like I was some kind of stone instead of a living being!

They wanted to unleash my true potential, not for myself, but so that they could use it. They wanted to find out just what I was capable of, and I intend for it to be the last thing they ever see! I will lay them down on the pillar to the false god of science to which they have scarified so many, and add their entire race to the pile.

My blade is so perfect that it can kill without drawing blood, I will hone the rest of the world as I hone my blade, to the point of perfection!" Aeris shuddered, she the pure hate in the mans voice was enough to make a fire dance in his eyes, even worse she knew he truly believed what he said.

But he was not doing this petty or spite, he was doing it because he wanted to make the world a better place. That was the most frightening thing about him, because in the end she believed that doing what they thought was right was the force that drove her as actions as well. "Humanity is not evil by nature, there is weakness, there is pain, but more so, there is strength, there is a will to do right!"

Sephiroth began to slowly run a hand along the scabbard strapped to his back. "Do not make judgments in a felid of where you have no experience. You have not experienced war, you have never seen bodies ripped open, and cast asunder like heaps of garbage. You have never seen the way humans lower themselves beyond the wildest animals, filled with rage and fear.

Humans nothing but wastes of Lifestream, and waste needs to be eliminated. So tell me half-Cetra, why do you chose to throw your life away, when you could live to see the world reborn?" Aeris sighed, and slowly reached into her hair, careful not to remove the ribbon but pulling from it instead, a glowing white marble. She could feel the white materia glow in her palm.

"Because of this. Through this materia, I can here the voice of my mother, and the voice of the planet. I can hear the planet's cries and pleads that all can be saved, that none if its children has to die.

Through my mothers voice, I can hear her determination, the determination that made her the first Cetra to ever love to a human. That determination tells me that no matter what is too happen, I can not afford to give up."

Sephiroth's suddenly burst into a emotionless, empty, laugh, a laugh that sounded more inhuman than any Nanaki could have ever produced. As he laughed his left hand drew forth a small sphere the same size as Aeris' although it completely black. "WHAT MARVELLOUS JEST! Very well half-Cetra, my first assessment was closer then I have would have dared to ever hope!

You see, you are not the only one who draws determination through an object you carry. You see through the Black Materia, I can here my mother's voice, the voice of Jenova. I know of all the crimes humanity has committed against her, and my ancestors. To hear such tales would drive a lesser being into a mindless rage, even I a Cetra am left filled me with the same refusal to back down that your mother gives you.

When I hold this gem, I know what must be done to protect this world. You see half-Cetra, we are so very closely united in goals, and so very disunited over the issue of means. Almost like a mirror, look into one and you do not see yourself, but your inverse. Whenever I look into a mirror I see you, and whenever you look into a mirror, you will see me.

Looking at you I see a part of me I detest, the part that makes me want to forgive those who have done me naught but on ill turn after another, a part of me that is afraid of what carrying my plants to fulfilment could mean. But I close my ears to it, you see half-Cetra, power is nothing without the determination to use it.

I once lacked that determination, and was little more then a puppet to Shinra before I met my mother and she gave it to me. Because of that determination I will risk making a foe of this entire world to save it, the risk is after all, proportional to the reward. However for you there is no risk, there is no reward, your death is certain."

Aeris shuddered slightly. "I don't care, I have determination, whatever happens I will at least try." "You have much spirit, to go to your death willingly, too bad that I couldn't convince you to join me in the world to come. I'll have to settle for making your death truly a show like none that have come before it. The culminating act of which will be when that idiotic Strife acting under my power, will take your head from your shoulders with his own blade."

Aeris' eyes filled with fright, not at the thought of her own death, but of how Cloud would react to being forced to commit such a deed. "No..." The word slipped from her lips without thought, and Sephiroth looked at her with an eager grin on his face. "Why not? Why shouldn't I show Strife just how powerless he is before a Cetra? Why shouldn't his foolish delusions be shattered as by the cold steel of reality?

He has a foolish, love for you half-Cetra, a storybook love. I feel that he should learn just how harsh life is before he is eradicated along with the others. Why shouldn't I?" "If you think we are equals in any way, then do it out of respect for me. I would gladly lay down me life, but I refuse to have blood be shed here against anyone's will.

Refuse to allow this sacred place, this pure water, to be defiled. This is the last place on the planet where the glory of the Cetra remains pure do you wish to unhallow it?" Sephiroth slowly began to scratch his chin. "You bring up an interesting point, very well.

I will make Strife think he was going to kill you, to show him how powerless he is, but then at the last moment I will stop him. Then I shall fall as he watches helplessly, and drive Masamune through your heart." As Aeris heard Cloud' approaching footsteps Sephiroth vanished and she once again lowered her head to the pedestal floor and began to pray for Holy after returning the materia to its normal resting place.

Time seamed to move all too quickly when you aren't paying any attention to the world around you. She would have felt no more pain having accidentally pricked herself with a pin, then her vision went black. She couldn't breath, but her lungs didn't feel as if they where burning, she fell to her knees, and died her face stuck in a look of amazement. Not amazement at her own death, but amazement that someone like Sephiroth could deal death so painlessly, so quickly, so humanely.

--

Sephiroth finally looked back at Aeris having finished the story. "Death marks the culmination of life, and many can learn more because of the first than the latter." Aeris raised her eyebrows hesitantly. "You know all about how I died, I think it would only be fair for you to tell me everything about your death."

Sephiroth instantly returned his focus to the wheel, not that he needed to. "That is a story for another day. No reason to jump to the next lesson before you have even finished the first. If you learned nothing from your own death, allow me to enlighten you to what I learned from it in retrospect.

Hate for its own ends consumes, totally, including the one who hates, in us at least." Aeris scowled at Sephiroth slightly. "What do you mean by, us?" Sephiroth did not meet her eyes. "I trust you remember a man by the name of Berret Wallace? His name should be particularly easy to remember considering that he had a history with the man my father killed recently.

His heart was every bit as filled with hatred for Shinra as mine was for humanity. He hated them from the bottom of his heart because they took away everything he ever knew, he hated them even more than my father did Simon Hojo. But because Wallace's hate was a ragging fire, it could grow by consuming other things, like love, my father's hate is a cold frozen absolute.

It will not lessen, nor will it grow, that kind of hate can focus a person on his goals. However burning hate only clouds your goals, makes it impossible to see them clearly, it causes a man to stray from the path of god.

However, we were far from equally sinful in the eyes of god for what we did when influenced by our hate. Why? Because when a human being is consumed by a hot burning hate it is the same as an animal becoming rabid, it is still the same animal. A human consumed by hate is still a human, still bound by the same rules, still forced to follow the way of society.

When an angel is consumed by hate and strays from the light of god it becomes a deamon, suffice to say a mere human consumed by hate is nothing compare to a deamon who is at home in the fires of hell itself. That is what I mean by 'us' Aeris, you are still mostly human, but you become more of a Cetra all the time.

The simple fact is that we who can listen to the voice of god itself, must obey his call, or we may never get another chance to hear it again." Aeris sat in silence as she worked over Sephiroth's words, it was a clear sign that he was at least thinking about what he did, but then she could have guessed that already.

More to the point, she hadn't started down this line of questions to learn about Sephiroth, she was trying to learn more about herself! She decided to ask a question which blended the two together. "How do you draw the line between Cetra and human, and how do you know I'm crossing it?"

Sephiroth returned her gaze to her to answer that one "Humans are inherently sinful creatures because they can not truly see the path of god laid out before their feet. But then you could always see that path couldn't you Eve? It would be the only way for someone to have grown up in Lower Midgar and end up the way you did.

Much as I hate this particular saying, 'snowballs chance in hell' does quite nicely describe the odds of being uncorrupted by the evil of that place. You were better then those around you, you were Cetra. But then you were also human because you refused to fully realize just what kind of filth you were surrounded by.

You may lead a human to the path of God only if he is willing to try and follow it, or at least willing to believe in it. Those who stray from the road of their own ambition because of that ambition, can not be forced back onto that road by any means."

Aeris scowled deeply. "Why did you leave the path? Last time I checked it was about certain desires you held in the area of apotheosis." "In the passing from one world to another, there is a rare chance that does not exist in any other place. It is a chance to be touched by God himself, a chance for any man to repent his sins.

Not all can be redeemed in life, but any man can be redeemed in death. That is why I serve sinners with death, because it brings them closer to God." Aeris could take no more and looked away. "Death will never be a thing I glorify in, brown roses do not bring pleasure to people."

Sephiroth, confident that Aeris couldn't see his face, smirked. "It is good that you do not take life without hesitation, but there will come a time when you encounter one beyond redemption. What you do then, will determine if you are human or if you are a Cetra." Aeris gave a hesitant sigh. "You may be right Sephiroth." She admitted wordlessly to herself. /But right now I think you're asking the right question, and giving the wrong answer.\

End Chapter.


	6. Chapter 6

FN: Well congratulations even if I only got one review (thanks Reiko) you people still managed to break 400 hits. I hope you're proud of yourself since my 16 chapter long Suikoden Story only has 476 hits at the moment. Have more needless Kurt Vonnegut style mind fery before the actual story!

--

"Catch!" The simple plastic disc wizzed through the air and Red J had to give his all in order to catch it. "His all" included a jump which climaxed with him throwing the disc back right back before he hit the ground. Unlike his "opponent's" throw, Red's J's sent the disc right back to the one who had thrown it, and White M easily snatched it out of the air.

"You should take more care of yourself." Red J slowly rose back to his feet shaking off a small cloud of dust. "I'm fine. I was built to be hardy, I was built to be a lot of things." White M lazily spun the frisbee about on a raised index finger. "You weren't 'built' Red, you were made." Red J held out his hands imploringly, waiting for White M to start their game again. "What's the difference?"

White M sighed as she looked to the left and right, though there was nothing around them but sand one way or another. "Bridges are built, people are made." Red J slowly scratched the back of his neck, as if feeling the small metal square beneath it. "Okay I was made, but still, I'm not like you, I know things."

White M increased the speed at which the disc spun. "Everyone knows things." Red J shook his head, and pressed both of his index fingers to his head. "No, I know things that I shouldn't, things that I can't know.

Like rain. I know what rain is M, little bitty drops of water falling from the sky, so how come I know what rain is if it never comes here? Have you ever seen it rain?" White M's left hand snatched the disc from the finger, smiling all the while. "Yeah. it used to rain quite a bit where I came from, it used to rain quite a bit everywhere else but here."

Red J looked accusingly into the cloudless sky. "Why doesn't it ever rain here? I'd like to know how it feels, to stand outside while water slowly splashes against me. I know about snow also, they say people hold out their tongues and catch snow flakes on their mouths, I'd be happy to stick mine out and catch a single droplet of water."

White M glared off in the direction she had come from. "It doesn't rain here because your mother doesn't want it to rain." Red J suddenly hunched over his shoulders as if trying to look as small as possible. "Why don't people get it? If they'd just stop fighting then Mommy would bring the rain back, wouldn't she?"

White M might be in her own words, a stone hearted bitch who enjoyed it when people screamed in pain, but even she couldn't bring herself to break a child's dreams, whatever she might do to its body. "I'm sure she will J, I'm sure she will." Then she gave an uncharacteristically unimpressive toss which Red J easily caught.

"Good. There's so much I know, and so much I haven't seen. When this is over will you help me see M?" White M, wasn't like Red J, she had a name, and she knew what the chances of her succeeding would be. But then those chances hadn't bothered her or Brown C, when they'd taken the job.

They had lived for this kind of thing, and they had died doing it, now they would probably die doing it again. "We'll see Red J, we will see. If Black M doesn't come back then it'll be my turn."

Red J held the frisbee he had caught over his heart. "If Black M doesn't come back, it'll be because he died, won't it?" White M nodded. Red J half tossed, half dropped the frisbee into the sand and then got down on his hands and knees and was violently ill. He wanted to purge himself of the cruelty of the world, but there was so much of it.

FN: And now the actual story, enjoy Vincent and Lucrecia getting to be the main focus once again.

The Immortal Gunman Chapter Eight: Remember how I found you there, alone in your electric chair? I told you dirty jokes untill you smiled.

There was only the sand around them, only the sand in front of them and only the sand behind them. Vincent with his guns, and Lucresia carrying a briefcase large enough to hold some automatic weaponry and a sizeable chunk of ammo.

"You sure you don't need my help with that?" Lucresia flashed him a confident smile as she increased her pace to match his own. "Thanks for the offer, but I can handle it just fine." Vincent's eyes widened sharply. "You've changed, forgive me for being a bit behind the times but I still remember the days when I had to have you lean on me on the way to our cave."

Lucresia just kept right on smiling. "Before I met you, you where feared as 'The Grim Valentine' weren't you? The love of a son and the passage of time can do a lot to change people." Vincent nodded "The Grim Valentine" was one of the many colorful phrases Vincent had accumulated over the years in what could only be called a "notorious career" of working for Shinra.

The ex-Turk's voice was more interested then accusing as he responded. "So in what ways have you changed?" Lucresia suddenly refused to meet his eyes. "There was a thirty year gap between my and Sephiroth's death. Thirty years of me surviving on out here on my own in a world that hated me with a vengeance. I was the first Non-Cetra, to ever enter the world.

It was thriving back then so there was plenty of available food for me to live off of, but I had to learn how. Fortunately my present condition gave me plenty of room for trail and error." "What do you mean by 'present condition' if you don't mind me asking?" Lucresia's head swung back and they once again locked eyes. "How would you define mako poisoning?"

Vincent sighed, he had plenty of time to study mako power, since he'd had nothing better to do with his time than help with the process of dismantling it. "After extensive research, mako poisoning is not a condition that comes about because mako has poisonous or corrosive qualities. It exists because exposure to mako can cause the human body's metabolism to increase.

If that metabolism starts running too fast the body can't possibly ingest enough food to sustain itself. That's why mako treatments generally should be accompanied by Jenova cells injections. Because Jenova cells are more efficient than human ones, so they decrease the amount of energy necessary for the body to sustain itself. Thus while third and second class SOLDIERS can get by without them, due to the much smaller amount of mako they get ,first class SOLDIERS always reserve Jenova cell enhancements because they received large amounts of mako into their bodies."

Lucresia nodded sadly. "Yes, first class SOLDIERS receive Jenova cells, for reasons that are abundantly clear with me as an example. The mako injected into my womb was enough for a first class SOLDIER, as were the Jenova cells. However, the mako got into my bloodstream and body, but the Jenova cells didn't. When I realised it was killing me, around eight months in, I did the only thing I could ethically as a doctor, I took out my own prescription.

When Hojo wasn't looking I started giving myself Jenova cell injections. But by then my body was already too weak to be saved. Still, they kept me alive long enough to give birth to Sephiroth, I hoped they would save both of us, but saving him was enough at the time.

In this world though, your body gets reconstructed from your own self image. I thought I should have had a lot of Jenova cells in my body, so this new one did. When I was reborn, my body was weak, but still functional, more importantly the Jenova cells had become fully integrated with my own.

Which means that my body was running so efficiently that I could get by on about one seventh as much food as most people. Eating regular meals helped me get my feet back under me and recoup what energy I had lost, though for the first few weeks I might not have made it on my own.

There was one Cetra who helped me through it though, and by the time the other's turned on her I was stronger then anyone realised. To sum it up in a couple words, I now have the mako and Jenova cell enhancements of a first class SOLDIER, if not slightly higher." Vincent tried hard not to let his eyes from going wide at that announcement, tried hard but failed.

First impressions where frequently what you based everything else you ever learned about a person on, and Vincent's first impression of Lucresia (at least when he had met her in their last lives) had been of a frightened girl in desperate need of any kind of assistance.

He could accept (and was actually quite fond of) thoughts that the girl was now able to take care of herself. However imagining that this girl now could fight as well as a first class SOLDIER was more then a bit of a shock. He did managed to avoid being caught completely lacking for words. "Well... how... nice... for you."

Lucresia fondly patted her metal case. "I know, it's a real step up in the world all things considered." Vincent nodded like a boxer reeling from a blow to the head, desperate to find anything else to talk about his eyes focused on Lucresia's suitcase. Gazing at it made him remembered the odd look Sephiroth had given her at her announcement to make one, and Aeris' one of barely restrained fright.

There was something in there, just like there was something in Sephiroth's cross, and his arm come to think of it. "So do you keep in there?" Lucresia gave the case a quick swing though there was nothing it could have possibly connected with. "Just a few toys, after I'd finished Sephiroth's cross I got rid of my last one since it was rather redundant.

Right now, however anything less than one of these things wouldn't be close to enough." Vincent nodded, even his two pistols hadn't been enough, but that was partly his fault. He had spent plenty of time training over the last forty years, but he hadn't spent much of that time fighting.

Vincent had made all kinds of mistakes during that gunfight, and not aiming for Dyne's head was only the most obvious of them. "If you would tell me the general kind of weaponry you have in there it might help me during the next fight we get in. Fr example, if you had told me about my arm cannon a few moments later that grenade would have blown me to bits." "Well a girl has to keep her secrets, so how about I tell you the story of what happened the last time I had to use something like this?"

--

Aeris felt her entire life come crashing down around her. No, that had already happened, now her entire afterlife was crashing down around her. As she looked up at the crowd arrayed against her she saw no faces that could even be imagined as friendly. All she could see was faces filled with rage, telling her she didn't belong here, or even worse, that she had failed.

That she had sacrificed herself for nothing, that because she had given her life the way she had, that she had destroyed the entire planet. But why shouldn't they say that, she had known all along that Sephiroth's magic was stronger then her own. But even with that knowledge, she couldn't believe that Sephiroth and Jenova would be able to suppress Holy with such ease.

Perhaps worst of all, because she had died with no children, that meant the only people left on the planet where humans who would surely destroy it one way or another. Aeris didn't know if they would go so far as to kill her, at the moment she didn't care, couldn't have cared. It was too much, too soon, too unplanned for.

Then suddenly all the voices stoped yelling insults at her, and fell silent. Their eyes where instead focused on one incredible sight, and Aeris to was drawn to the one who had captured their attention. A pair of glowing green glowing eyes split the darkness as a women dressed in a white labcoat stepped forward.

She wore her silver hair loose, but it reminded her of someone closely enough to send shivers up Aeris' spine, and it apparently had the same effect on the crowd. However, at the same time a moment later they drew some strength from their numbers. The man who supposedly was in charge of the crowd (as much as any one can be in charge of a mob) worked up the courage to sneer at her. "What are you doing here Jenova witch? You are allowed to exist soley by the grace of the Cetra, you shouldn't push your luck by infringing on their affairs!"

Several crowd members echoed that sentiment. However they where silenced by a single "THUD" as the woman's hand opened. A metallic colored suitcase landed on the ground with an all but deafening impact. The woman's voice had far more confident than any member of the crowd.

"You're right, but who said you could turn this girl into a pariah. But seeing as you have, I'm going to take her off your hands." There was tranquillity, but clearly it would only last till the members of the crowd figured out what kind of magic they wanted to use. "Go ahead and try, we'll dispose of you and this failure at the same time!" The woman shrugged as she slowly helped Aeris up, as if wanting to make sure she still knew how to stand. Once she sure that Aeris could maintain her own balance (even if her legs where slightly unsteady) she looked calmly at a small swatch on her right wrist.

"That would be a very, very bad idea." She pressed a button on the watch and suddenly a small hatch popped open on the suitcase. She hit another button, and a moment later two disks went shooting out of the suitcase like clay pigeons. One landed to the right of where they stood, and one to the left.

Then she finally returned her gaze to the crowd. "I would suggest you rethink that statment. If you try to hurt us, you will all be dead before the first word of any incarnation leaves your mouths. These things are a little something I made, and if I press this button one more time they'll begin detecting heat sources. If I press it two times, they'll open up with a fifty round clips into everything with a temperature above 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Or to simplify things, they'll turn all of you into piles of shrapnel shredded flesh."

Now that took some starch out of their shirts, every memeber of the crowd took a step back and then another. When one finally spoke it sounded practically like a plea. "Long have we known the powers of Jenova may look impressive, but are nothing but empty boasts!" The woman tapped her watch and a pair of turrets popped out of the black disks and swivelled to point themselves at the center of the crowd.

"Oh, I just felt a shive go my spine. The man I love is right, there's a certain perverse pleasure in killing people who deserve it. Now, make me press this button, and you won't live to regret it." No one dared make a move or even raise their voice against the woman. "Glad to see you're paying attention." With that she wrapped her arm around Aeris' shoulder, stopping only to pick her suitcase back up. then they walked away.

Aeris' head still swam with everything that had just happened, however she managed to force herself to ask one question. "Thanks... but I don't even know your name, or why your helping me." The women flashed Aeris a small confident smile. "My name is Lucresia Valentine, and I was just doing for you what someone should have done for me."

--

"Should have done?" It might have been hard for an unbiased observer to know if Vincent meant the question in jest on in actual mocking. Lucresia however brushed it off effortlessly. "You had less to work with then I did, what you did for me Vincent was more important then what I did for her."

Vincent allowed himself a self satisfied smug smile. "Well I'm glad that story had a happy ending. I trust helping Sephiroth was a bit more difficult then offering a shoulder to lean on?" Lucresia looked Vincent right in the eyes. "I'm afraid that you'll have to find that one out later, most likely from your own son."

"If you could be a bit less cryptic Lucresia, my life would have been a lot less stressful." Vincent's next words came out deadly serious. "For example, if you had bothered to ask me for help, that time, none of this would have happened." No words where spoken between the two for a very long time after that pronouncement. But in the end Lucresia finally did respond. "Don't blame yourself for what happened, either to me or to Sephiroth.

We dug our own holes, made our own mistakes, and that means we have to work on climbing out of them by ourselves. Honestly, sometimes you're more concerned about other peoples problems than Aeris is." Stroked his holstered weapons. "It's only where family is concerned my dear, only where family is concerned."

Lucresia's smile would have erked him coming form any other women. "So Sephiroth was right, it must be in the wolf in you. I don't see any other possible reason for a man who would kill anyone for a few ten thousand kill bothering to bend down and pick up a women's purse and return it to her."

Vincent refused to meet Lucresia's eyes, (both of them had tucked away their glasses away while their was no one who could see them.) "Oh your going to bring that up again." "Well it was the way we met." Vincent felt a highly unprofessional mount of joviality running through them. "Yes, and when you wanted to shake hands I told that I was left handed.."

Lucresia nodded slowly but her question came with complete sincerity "Do you think Sephiroth is?" "With enough military training anyone becomes ambidextrous." "With weapons." Lucresia corrected him instantly, and Vincent nodded. "True enough, but unlike scientists the only things people in my profession had to document were expense reports."

"Let's forget about which hand we use Vincent, let's forget about what is behind us. For now, what are we gonna do about Jenova and Hojo?"

Vincent's smile was Turk through and through. "We track those two down, and we make them pay. We make what you went through seem like heaven, we make them beg us to kill them. Then we eradicate them and any of their warped creations from the face of the world."

"Well I hope we'll be able to make some real advancement in the field of us catching up on how we've missed each other for seventy years, in fact I know we will if we can make it to a town before nightfall." Vincent's pace suddenly increased drastically.


	7. Chapter 7

FN: Thanks to Aira Slytherin and Reiko for their reviews and this fic has now officially surpassed my seventeen chapter long Suikoden one when it comes to the number of hits (we're now up to 523 whopdeeee freaking do!) Also still not one more review on ANY of my or thegr8sephiroth's works. So all of you who are reading besides Reiko please except my "two fingered salute". Aira I suggest you go read and review "I've got not beef with you" so that my life, or at least this fic can have meaning once again.

And with that in mind, time to move into another mind numbing segment of the adventures of those who will remain nameless.

--

Air conditioning. It was one of those nice little gifts that man had given himself over the years, the ability to stay cool inside regardless of what eth temperature was outside. There wasn't much of it in this world and it seemed like Red J's father had a monopoly on it.

The drafts of cool air made his ears flick back and forth as he sat crouched before a giant rectangular black monolith. The other nine where there as well, and White M was sitting was sitting directly to his right, with Brown C to the right of her. Unable to discern the purpose of the object before him, James whispered a few choice words in her ear. "What is that thing?"

White M looked back at him, and then gave a sigh of irritation. "It's a television. Granted this particular one is almost more of a home theater system, but you obviously wouldn't know about that. It's a device for transmitting the images from one place to another so someone can witness first hands what's happening halfway across the world."

He had known what it did from the moment she had told him what it was, but before he could tell her that, Red J's father walked out before them and coughed once to clear his throat. "None of you are to leave this room, and you are to blink as few times as possible during what comes next. After the first two of you failed, I have decided that a very special type of training might be in order to make sure we do not see any more down the line.

This machine will receive the signal being broad cast by the special nano transmitters I installed in Black M's eyes, and whether or not you are aware of it, you all have similar devices installed as well." James winched and shut his own eyes, he didn't like to think of anyone playing around with his ocular organs not even (or was that especially not) his father.

"Through them, you will be able to see everything he sees, and should he not be successful, you will see exactly what fate awaits you if you follow in his footsteps. There is no backing down, there is no middle ground, our foes seek to destroy us, so we must destroy them! Watch, and learn their every through Black M's eyes. Learn their every movement, learn their every tactic, learn to hate them from the very bottom of your souls!"

Then he walked out and the screen turned on. Red J turned and whispered what he felt was another very important question to White M. "If our survival depends on us killing them, why doesn't daddy just have us all attack them at once?" White M buried her own face in her gloved hands. "Because Red, some people are never satisfied until they've inflicted ever possible ounce of pain that they can."

FN: And now back to our heroes.

Chapter 10: The ancient one has tranquil eyes, and a voice that's seldom heard, above the reckless fury that surrounds him at his worst.

Vincent and Lucresia finally managed to walk into town as the sun was going down, after having walked something around fifty miles or more on that one day. The two merely paid for their room and collapsed onto the bed, much to his chagrin in hindsight. However when the next day dawned the two were both fully rested and ready for the task that lay before them. That particular task was gathering information and Vincent had a running theory of where the best place to gather information was, so went about applying it to yet another town.

--

The town of Roaring Fire boasted more than one saloon, but Vincent was never at a loss for this particular problem. His high tech "whichever one is closest" approach haddn't failed him yet. He strode into the bar confidently, sat down, ordered a drink, and got to work listening to the information getting passed around.

Quite quickly Vincent picked up on a few things: the town used to be just a general non descript villiage until about a decade ago. It was an entirely human notion, but then humans where by and large always quick to cease whatever good possible from a situation.

They had replaced the previously employed bartering system with the traditional gill, not the Cetra seamed to mind that much. Mainly because (one of the things Sephiroth liked most about this place) all human life was dependent on Cetra at the moment. Only Cetra could make food grow in the generally nutrient-less soil, so it was hard to imagine a city fo any reali size lasting long without them.

Thus Cetra who could grow more food than they could eat would sell the rest to the humans, and those humans handed money to the Cetra. Cetra were at first adverse to spending money, normally being able to get all they needed from nature, but as the Promise Land became a harder and harder place to live they also began to employ some human ideas, like mako power.

No one was able to draw out mako the way they could back on the planet with huge machines, but instead most involved small single owner well like structures. Such "Mako Wells" could provide enough mako to get buy on given the minmal demands for electricity, Sephiroth had personaly dug one such well outside the house he, Lucresia, and Aeris had stayed at.

Surpringly even his son didn't seem particularly averse to using mako power in this world, probably because such there was no end to mako in this world. The stuff practically shot out of the ground and no one doubted that it would continue to do so, the Promise Land was filled with mako because the Lifestream wasn't needed.

Cetra magic could provide the power to bring things to life instead, such as when they grew the plants that people ate. So by now even Cetra had some idea of the value of money, and of course, with the influx of money, came people who would rather try to steal it than earn it. That was what had made this city famous, it had been practically built around one huge bank that was used to store money from other banks.

Its walls where built from wood, but it had been strengthened by Cetra magic to be harder than any stone. It was staffed with guards, some human, some Cetra, and no one ever thought about trying to steal from it. To do so would bring down the entire town on them, and because it was safe made it a town where people came from all over to stay.

It was also a town with more then a few blacksmiths and gunsmiths (not that Vincent felt the need to shop around) and Lucresia had said she was determined to spend her day showing the residents what real weapon making was all about.

Strains of music broke Vincent's concentration and he turend his head towards a man with blue eyes and brown hair who sat in one corner of the room playing a guitar. He was not the first musician Vincent had seen in a tavern, but he was by far the best.

His hands danced across that guitar's strings with a grace comparable to that with which Vincent handled firearms. It was quite clear that he had spent several years practicing his craft, and Vincent couldn't help but show the man his respect by flipping him a hundred gil coin as he headed towards the tavern's exit.

The mans deft hand caught the coin out of midair and a small smile split across his face "Thanks; a guy doesn't get enough application doing a job like this." Vincent gave a small nod thinking of other jobs one could do very well without being appreciated.

"It's just not an easy world for us true artists any more, is it?" The man hung his head, his fingers of his empty hand touching, but not actually strumming his instruments strings. "I blame it on the lack of communication, instead of being a star, you just becomes a folk legend." He began to flip the coin back and forth across the knuckles of his palm. "By the way, my name CD, just CD."

Vincent looked at the muscian, wondering if he was making some kind of joke, but apperently CD was serrious. Which left Vincent nothing to do but contemplate how a man would doubtlessly end up going at least a little insane if he devoted his life to doing only one thing, in fact Vincent could have had a very good five sided inner monologue on the subject..

--

The sound of gunshots instantly woke Vincent, he reached for Redemption and Death which should have been in their respective holsters, strapped to the belt he never took off his pants. When he didn't feel them it took him a few moments to realize that the problem was not an abberation in his weapon keeping system, it was just that he didn't have his pants on.

He rolled out of the bed that he and Lucresia shared, grabbing them and yanking them on as quickly as possible. Whatever feelings of emarsement Vincent had were banished to the furtherst reaches of his soul asdonned his customary black suit coat and red scarf.

The suit coat was buttoned in a flash, and he adjusted his scarf so that it hid his weaponry (in retrospect he realized, it only hid Redemption, it'd been a while since he'd holsters to worry about on the left side of his body) before surveying the room.

Much to his chagrin, by the time he was discoverd that by the time he'd gotten up dressed and armed, Lucresia had managed to the do the exact same thing. He mentally kicked himself for not being the faster of the, before the first word left her mouth. "Don't worry too much about it Vincent, the previous shots got me up only about half a minute before you."

As ussual the ex-Turk was harder on himself as anyone else cared to be. "I should have guessed that no amount of the trianing I'd been giving myself before I 'died' would be a match for the real thing." Lucresia gave him a small wink. "That, and you had fourty years of getting used to sleeping with your pants on."

Vincent felt the start of a blush creeping along his face, it figured that after four decades of sleeping in his clothes and never needing to wake up fully armed only now that he was taking them off did things start to go wrong while he was sleeping. Which, of course, was all the proof he needed to be sure of one thing, fate still was using Vincent Valentine as a chew toy.

He didn't bother to ask what was going on, he just grabbed Lucresia practically yanking her out of the room on his way towards the sound of the gunshots; she didn't protest.

--

A huge crowd gathered around the left side of the bank. Whoever had attacked the thing had done it in the dead of night, and had used very heavy weaponry. A hole had been blown in the side of the wall, a wall which would had resisted the flames of Sephiroth's cross, and barely been dented by Vincent's bullets. While guns were fairly plentiful Lucresia had been quick to explain that explosives (espeically ones that packed that kind of power) were extramly rare in the Promise Land.

Mainly because a lot of people who tried to make their own using materials they weren't familiar with didn't survive their first mistake. According to her explosives that had used on the bank were not only very powerful, but very well made. The holes they had left behind were perfectly round, instead of looking like something out of a rorschach test.

The crowd watched hesitantly, a pair of men where crouching behind that hole in the wall with only their hands and the automatic weapons they held in plain sight. Even though most town people had pistols, they where no match for men with such weaponry in well defended positions, and they knew it.

Lucresia and Vincent both looked over the crowd of people (many of which looked like they had spent even less time or at least achieved less in the way of results than the two of them when it came to getting dressed) milling about in states of near to complete confusion, abd Lucresia's eyes sparkled as a wicked idea occurred to her.

She spoke in a perfectly calm tone of voice but she whispered softly enough that only Vincent could hear. "Would you look at all this Vincent, seems like total chaos." At the same time the two men behind the wall peeked around and released a small spray of bullets that made the crowd back up slightly, even if none of them where hit.

Her heavy emphasis on the last word made her idea painfully obvious, leading him to scowl back at her. "Thank you, that idea never would have occurred to me on my own. By the way, I knew what you where thinking just by that look in your eyes, that's what happens when you truly love someone, now stand back."

Vincent had done what he was about to do so few times that he could count them on one hand, (which was good, because up until recenntly, he'd only had one "hand" to count on) but after today he'd need his bionic left hand to help him keep track. He closed his eyes and began to search into the deep reassesses of his mind. /Come on out you bastard, don't waste our time trying to hide from me, I'll rip apart all seven circles of hell to find you!\

His face tightened slightly as he heard the voice he was looking (if not exactly hoping) for. "You know, I may have misjudged this emotion called 'Love', in the last few days you have been closer to calling me then you have in the last decade." /Shut up Chaos, just because you and I have to share this body doesn't mean we have to like each other. Now I made it clear years ago which of us is master and which of us is servant.\ "You know she made me." /That's that not the kind of thing you want to say to a man who was thinking about letting you to have fun.\ "But then maybe that was because she was upset over what a pathetic weakling you had become and wanted a way to remind you of what you once where."

/Guess what, I don't care, you're nothing but a figment of my imagination, even when you exist, I control you, not the other way around.\ "Just continue to tell yourself that." Vincent gritted his teeth, some things never changed regardless of how much better his life seemed to be getting. /Apparently I haven't taken you to task for a while, ready for another turn as my personal whipping boy?\ "If you can humiliate me that easily you would spend more time with me." /That's because unlike you I don't enjoy causing others pain.\ "I beg to differ." /Fine then, let me add a qualifer, unlike you I only enjoy hurting people who disserve it.\

"Funny I thought you would include me in that group." /Fine, I only really enjoy hurting people who have hurt me. You're only a mild irritation, I've had sun burns more annoying then you, and now its time for you to get dragged out like the beast you are to perform the one trick you know.\ "Well we are all miserable, at least I enjoy my work." Vincent's eyes opened with the fires of hell in them this time, and he drew Redemption into his right hand.

"MY NAME IS VINCENT VALENTINE, FATHER OF GENERAL SEPHIROTH! NOW FOR ANY OF YOU WHO HAVE DOUBTS TAKE ONE LOOK AT MY LONG HAIR, MAKO ENHANCED EYES, AND START FREAKING OUT!" As Vincent spoke his left pulled his red sunglasses from his face (tucking them into a pocket of his black suit coats) so that they could all get a good long look.

"NOW I'M ABOUT TO GO DO TO THAT BANK WHAT SEPHIROTH DID TO NIBELHIME, UNLESS YOU WANT TO DIE, GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW!" It was at that moment when a pair of leathery purple wings sprung from his shoulders. After seeing that it didn't take the crowd long to decide they would rather be some place else.

In a few moments the two stood stood alone, and even Lucresia took a few steps away from Vincent as the rest of his body began to shift. He grew taller and broader, his gloves disappeared into his discolored skin and his fingernails turned into claws.

His teeth sharpened and grew larger to accompany his now expanding mouth. His ears became pointed transformed into claws. Vincent stepped forward, his vocal cords where no longer capable of producing human speech, but the growl he let out was quite universal.

The two men looked out from behind the wall and their jaws went slack at discovery of the monster they now faced. That slackawed shock only lasted long enough for them to instinctivly birng up their guns and jerkily pull their respective triggers. Saddly for them, Vincent's now leathery skin was a far better protection then a kevlar vest.

Unless, by some incredible chance once of their bullelts struck Vincent in the eye, they might as well have been shooting blanks, and Vincent had made sure to squeeze his eyes shut as he walked forward. When the two men finally realized that their shots had been wasted (and that they were out of bullets) they threw down their guns, at the same time Vincent raised his arms.

Sand kicked up as if a horrendous wind storm suddenly manifested, and that sand was aimed right at the two men. The stuff slammed into their eyes blinding them, sand filled their noses and mouths choking them, and sand struck into their bodies with such force that they where knocked down, head first onto the floor with such force that it was clear they wouldn't be getting up any time soon.

Vincent folded his wings into his back, and then they merged with his flesh. His leathery skin retracted becoming gloves, boots and clothing, his claws became fingernails. His eyes where once again the color of blood instead of hellfire, and his entire body was once more human, or what passed for human.

He turned back to Lucresia who was quickly drawing even with him. "Those two were in a heavily defended psoition with no way to take them but head on, I'm sorry you had to see that." Lucresia shook her head. "I believe in personally seeing all of my work tested first hand, Chaos is a weapon, nothing more and nothing less. An exceptionally smart weapon, but not evil on his own. He can be used for good or for ill just like any weapon. When this is over remind me to make you a coat, I've already made one for Sephiroth."

Vincent could have argued with her on her first point, have spent many hours getting to know just how sadistic Chaos was, but now was cleary not the time. He stepped inside the bank and slowly looked down the halls. "I don't any idea which way it is to the vault, but I'm pretty sure that's where whoever is in charge of this thing will be." Lucresia pointed to the hallway that lead to the right. "Well then, you go that way, I'll go left, we can get em all that way."

Vincent raised an eyebrow "You're sure that you'll be able to handle any trouble you run into?" Lucresia calmly clicked the two catches of her briefcase as if she was going to open the thing, but it didn't open. Instead a small portion of the briefcase began to rotate, and then part of it retracted, before a small barrel extended out of it.

"The thing is clip fed from inside, its bullets are small but they explode on impact throwing shrapnel around inside the targets body. Couple rounds from it will make someone look like they got nailed by a shotgun at point blank range. The trigger is built into the handle, if I hold it tightly while holding down the back for leverage, it starts shooting."

"You know, I keep forgetting the entire thing that underneath the sweet little girl look, you're a psycho bitc now." Lucrecia blushed and swooned slightly. "Oh Vinny you always say the niceset things!" Vincent turned his back with a smile one his face. "Look after yourself, I know Sephiroth wouldn't be able to stand knowing that one of his parrents parents to get taken down by pathetic human thieves like these."

--

There were lots of places to take cover, that was the one good thing about a building that was only a few notches behind being a medieval castle, and of course such a place was all the more defensible when defended by people with automatic weapon, but it had it's weakness.

Vincent pratically flew around the corner as the men began to spray lead at him, and he didn't bother to shoot back. Instead he tucked his shoulders in and managed to roll underneath a desk that was clearly constructed for less spartan purposes. Bullets ripped through that desk but automatic weapons weren't much good against a target you couldn't see.

Ironically those bullets holes were more then enough for Vincent to see the people who were shooting back at him through. He rolled out from under the desk and jumped back over the desk in the opposite direction, both of his guns blazing away. Blood splattered on brown wood which might as well have been steel from how hard it was.

By the time he landed the four men who had been shooting at him were already dead from two bullet holes each, one in the head and one in the chest. Each bullet had landed in almost exactly the same place on each man, Vincent smiled as he stood back up. "I've been around for over a century now, and I still have it. I guess they're right, these really are the golden years."

--

The two guards held up their rifles questioningly as they heard the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. "Who's there?" Receiving no answer both men carefully braced their guns against their shoulders even if they couldn't see their target yet. When their target finally did come into range they paused for a moment in surprise.

Then the woman's right hand held the briefcase down so that it was pointed up at them and her left gave it a sharp tug. The gun flew from the man's hands as if it had a life of its own and he felt something tear at his face like a piece of melted wax splashed on his cheak.

The pain was brief however, because just then a single round flew straight through his eye socket. The small bullet exploded, and that was all it took to tear through his brain, killing him before he could scream. His partner wasn't as lucky, the shot that did him in struck his for head so the bullet needed to take the time to work its way through his skull before it could probably kill him.

Lucresia nodded as she examined the results of her work. "Kickback was a little strong, I even missed with my third shot, needed five shots instead fo foor. Good thing I didn't bring much equipment special equilment out here, means I can afford to waste some ammo." With that she continued down the halls, the hair on the back of her neck slowly gone on end. These guards where getting farther and farther apart, and that could only mean one thing.

--

Vincent carefully reloaded his guns and then with both of them drawn stepped over the dead bodies of the guards. The vault had apparently been blown apart by the same force which had destroyed the wall, something that left a perfectly (or very close to it) round hole in whatever it was aimed at.

As Vincent stepped into the vault itself, money was still perfectly stored on shelves, which made only made him privately wonder what the hell was going on. Then from around the corner, he heard a voice echo. "You think this is the coda? It's just the refrain."

A familiar looking man dressed this time in a black robe with golden trim and a cape with similar color scheme stepped forward. Vincent scowled in surprise as it took his brain a few moments to comprehend what he saw. "I knew you were hard up for money, but don't you think this is a bit much?" CD sighed as he gestured to the untouched stacks of coins.

"This? What is money to a true artist? My actual name is Melkore, Melkore 'The Six String' Morningstar, and this is my, as well as your retirement gig. Mine, because after this I'm gonna go back to just singing, your's, because you're going to be playing a golden harp. You see this is a trap, just so that I can kill you."

Vincent scowled again. "Why? Last time I checked it was Sephiroth who everyone had the grudges against." Melkore slowly ran a hand along the guitar that he had strapped around his chest. "I believe you gave me a coin last time we met, here's mine." With that Melkore's hand deftly flicked a half coin into the air and it landed on the ground with a metallic cling, it was in fact only half a coin.

"I guessed as much, but I'm surprised that you people would do something like this just to get my attention. I suppose that leaves me only one option, I'll just have to take you down.

I don't suppose I could convince you that you don't have a chance against me." Melkore shook his head his right hand drawing close to the strings of his guitar like a man's hand going for his gun's trigger. "I don't think that would be fair. Not when I've spent all day getting tuned up for this!" Vincent sighed and holstered Death, figuring that he'd only need one gun to take care of this particular shoot out.

"As a Turk there are only two things that can truly irritate me, one of them is bad beer, the other is bad puns. You're only making things worse for yourself, I'm not going to shoot to kill, yet." Melkore's left hand moved with all the speed of a desert snake and it twisted one of the small knobs by the top of his guitar. A moment later the guitar began to emit an odd noise that Vincent noticed just in time as the top of the guitar moved forward the same way Vincent once seen his left hand move.

A moment later six barrels emerged and Vincent jumped as Melkore ran his hand along the guitar's strings, carefully caressing each one. Each of those barrels spat a round at where Vincent had been before he jumped, and they only imbedded themselves in the wall.

Vincent landed on one of the lower shelves and wedged himself behind one of the numerous piles of coins. Then he kicked that pile of coins out at Melkore, the gil coins a blinding cascade of gleaming metal. Melkore, however, simply drew his cape around himself and weathered the storm, not bothering to try and protect any part of himself in particular other than his eyes. When it passed he gave an irritated sigh.

"Okay then, now that I've played the opening chords its time to start a song!" His hand didn't bother to gently caress the strings this time, it was a hard stiff stroke that went from one cord to another and then back in an never ending pattern. The results where as predicted, a stream of bullets from varying barrels headed in his opponet's direction. Vincent rolled off the shelf to the floor and hit the ground with his feet first and leaped again.

He landed on another pile of coins and once again kicked them at Melkore, making him stop playing for moment. This time coins where not all Vincent sent at Melkore, he also snapped off a quick shot at Melkore's chest. Melkore, however, heard the gun's roar and this time he did not grab his cape, instead his left hand went back to the strings while his right grabbed the end of his guitar.

He held the thing before him as if the wooden instrument would stop a bullet that could have quite possibly penetrated any sort of normal body amour at close range. There was the clang of metal on metal and the bullet fell to the ground, the dent that it left on Melkore's guitar was barely visible.

However Melkore's face filled with rage all the same. "You know, the funny thing about trees is, the harder it is for them, the better they are. Out here practically no trees grow, and those that do can grow as little as a millimeter every year. But when they're that close together, not only are they very strong, they produce a truly marvellous sound!

But when that hardness is enhanced with Cetra magic, stopping bullets is child's play. My wonderful little Sasha didn't get a dent stopping the rounds those pathetic guards used, but then you had to go do that. Well now I'm mad, forget finger style guitar, it's time for heavy metal!" Before his left hand could make the guitar let loose with a true blaze Vincent fired again, and it was already halfway to Melkore's by the time he started playing.

No bullets emerged from the guitar this time around, instead when Melkore's left hand moved with an odd serenity to it, an odd deep sound began to resonate from Sasha (if you can name a gun or sword you can name an instrument.) a sound that grew louder with every passing second. Redemption's bullet was stopped in midair and Vincent was thrown backwards against a pile of coins on the shelf with a small grunt of pain.

Melkore blew on the top of his guitar as if it was a smoking gun. "It's a shame, when I play with my left hand the sound always seems distorted to my ear, but if I use it to aim it turns out incredibly erratic. It's true horror for a master to watch a fool play, and even worse to hear that sound come from his own hand."

Vincent glanced back and saw that the wall behind him had been dented, at least that explained the "explosives" Lucresia had wondered about earlier on. Vincent sighed as he got back up and Melkore just smiled again "That the real power of Sasha, most people don't see it which is why I'm called "The Six String" but you've just experienced first hand my sonic wave.

Now I'm gonna push the bass and make you wave bye-bye!" Vincent didn't repeat his statement about how much he hated bad puns, he jumped as Melkore's left hand ran down those strings. The wave of pure sonic energy kicked up coins like a raging bull and this time Vincent was caught in a storm of hard metal.

He barely managed to see Melkore's hand once again running through the strings caught inside that storm. He jumped to avoid being caught straight in the middle of that sonic blast, but did it too late, and that was worse then not at all. The energy slammed into his legs tossing him backwards as he tried to go forward. The two competing forces caused Vincent to spin in midair and fall like a bird struck by a large stone.

He didn't manage to brace this landing, he fell flat on his chest. Sasha face was lit up by a malicious smile "TIME FOR THE CHORUS!" However Vincent's right hand suddenly went from being trapped under his body to shooting straight out in front of him. He fired one shot as Sasha's hand went down the strings and then suddenly it snapped back as Vincent's bullet skimmed across his hand.

However, it was not his hand which Vincent had been aiming at, instead it was the lowest string on Sasha that was split apart. That bullet finally struck the back of Sasha's frame and stopped, once again leaving only a minuscule dent. Melkore spat out a curse as he took a moment to shake Sasha around till finally the bullet fell out from it to the ground. Then he held the guitar above his head as if he would bash Vincent's head open with it "YOU BARBARIAN! YOU CAN KILL ME, BUT TOUCH Sasha AND YOU'RE DESECRATING ARTWORK THAT SHOULD BELONG TO THE AGES!"

He lowered the guitar and his left hand shot forward as his right hand came back to the strings, ready to blast Vincent. However while Melkore had been removing the bullet, Vincent had gotten his feet back under him. Only five barrels blazed this time, but Melkore's hand moving with a vengeance that made it seam like he was playing a tweleve string version of his weapon.

Bullets spiraled from all directions and Vincent had saw only one way to dodge Melkore' blaze. He fainted left and right before managing to find enough ground not covered with coins to get nice solid hold on the ground. He leapt over Melkore releasing a single shot that made the musician (if you wanted to call Melkore that) jerk his hand back to his shoulder in pain.

It ripped through the black and golden fabric and a thin trickle of blood began to mix with the black and smear the gold. Melkore bit back a curse and returned his hands to his instrument and weapon tracing Vincent's path as his jump came to an end. Vincent felt several bullets rip through his own black suit coat, stinging him in places far more important than a mere shoulder grazing shot.

Vincent blocked out the pain, and he pointed the gun backwards, hoping that his memory wasn't being distorted in pain. He pulled the trigger as he dropped to the ground as a bullet slammed into his right leg below the kneecap. Melkore blocked the shot with Sasha but holding it in front of him vertically meant his barrels where pointed straight up, and he couldn't shoot.

Vincent braced himself with his hands as he hit the ground (thankfully not skidding on spilled coins) and suddenly he realized just how much he had been taking his body for granted, not only did he know, not think, know, that he wouldn't be killed by this much damage, but that he would get better in no time flat.

However that wasn't what really mattered, what mattered was that his body wasn't going into shock, he was still in this fight. His feet found themselves flat on the ground again and they pushed up as Vincent spun around. At the same time Melkore brought Sasha back down ready to finish Vincent with one more stream of bullets.

Melkore spoke one word as his hand came to the chords and as Vincent's hand whipped around with Redemption in it. "Refrain." In that frozen moment the two where like gentlemen duellists fighting at twenty paces instead of two men in a wild fight. If "fight" wasn't too civilized word for it, and then in a hail of lead that moment was shattered like a mirror.

As Vincent's hand whipped around, he not only fired, but then, in what could have been thought of as an accident, his grip loosened. The pistol flew out of his hand following not far behind the bullet, and with just as much force. Vincent fell to the ground as even more bullets tore into his arms and legs, but his chest was left largely unhurt, and managed to fall on his chest keeping his eyes on Melkore.

Melkore on the other hand blocked the bullet aiming for his heart with complete ease, and then Redemption struck. The pistol was not a light thing, and Melkore was not the strongest of men. Regardless of how strong his weapon was, because it was magically enhanced wood it was still very light, the metal gun was not.

The impact knocked Melkore backwards, and a torrent of bullets tore through the ceiling as his hand finally lost contact with the strings. He fell on his back, eyes looking backwards instead of at Vincent as he forced his rather wounded left arm take Death into a not so shaky hold.

However Melkore didn't see the gun come up at him, instead he saw a briefcase open on the ground before him several feet back, and the women who had dropped it. The women pressed a button on the watch she wore, and the briefcase spat out a metallic cube at him. Melkore's eyes filled with fear, as if he somehow knew what was about to happen, and he only had time for one action.

With both hands he threw Sasha away from him and backwards towards Vincent with reckless abandon and the words "Fallen, forgotten" played on his lips. Then the metallic cube flew so close to him that he could have touched it, and then it exploded in a shower of flame.

In the blink of an eye Melkore Morningstar vanished into a screaming inferno of flames, and the only thing left of him was ashes. Lucresia slowly picked her briefcase back up and gave Vincent a smile. "I came to a dead end, so I though I'd come and give you a hand. Besides, I couldn't miss a chance to try out my newest remote mines.

Most people don't expect you to detonate them in midair, and that's why their such great weapons in the heat of battle." Vincent sighed as he looked over his body, he only had been shot about a dozen times and none of them in the chest, but now that the adrenaline was gone they did hurt. "You could have been a little bit faster." Lucresia winked at him.

"But then you might have thoguht you couldn't take him on your own. Even shooting offhand he had no chance against you." Vincent took in a painful breath wishing that he would have used both guns and ended the fight quicker, then a horrifying thought struck him. The words practically fell from his mouth as he looked down on the floor. "You realize that we have to sort through this to find his half coin don't you?"

Lucresia in complete silence didn't even bother to go down on a knee, she just bended down and picked up a small half coin among the glinting golden gil coins. Vincent let lose a small laugh at the sight of it "Lucresia, you really are a lifesaver," before he once again allowed his body to slump with relief.

--

Vincent Valentine was dead to the world for the next day, literally. He crawled into bed, and slept through not only the hours of the night that where left, but the day and the following night as well.

When he finally did wake up, a quick check confirmed his hopes that all of the bullet holes he'd gone to sleep with had vanished not even leaving scars behind. He knew part of it was because of his Jenova cells and mako injections, the other (smaller part) most likely getting an inordinate amount of sleep. As he pulled his black suit coat back on from the desk where Lucresia had left it after working on it for a good portion of the day he noticed it was a little bit heavier.

Considering that Redemption's and Death, each over ten pounds felt only a little heavier than he thought a normal pistol should have he could make his own guesses. His gloves now also had a small latch located directly in the center of the palm that proved a far more intricate puzzle.

Lucresia would later tell him that it was an idea based of what she had seen him do with Redemption and that she had salvaged Sasha to get the necessary parts for it. A thought that was slightly less than pleasing to Vincent until he realized that "use the abilities of your foes against them" had already been decided as one of the prime rule of the battles to come. Running a hand down the wounds whose complete healing was only possible because of the 'mirical' of Jenova cells reminded him of that fact quite nicely.


	8. Chapter 8

AN: Once again a hearty f you to all my readers with the exception of Reiko. Aside from her the rest of you all are major league jackasses who apparently don't understand the principle that when you enjoy someone's writing in one story, you'll probably enjoy the other stories they've written. I especially despise you Aira Slytherin what with how you talk the talk but refuse to walk the walk. Once again we broke the 600 hit mark, whopdee freaking do, have some free mindfuckery on me!

The screen went blank. "And that is what happens to failures." J stood up and looked at his father. "He made... he made, such beautiful music to the end..." The dark haired man just chuckled. "Black M was nothing but a pathetic braggart who even had the afrontery to believe himself my equal in the field of science."

Red J stood up his voice a low growl. "How... how can you say that about him?" The black haired man smiled. "Easily. Remember you go last, and it will be White M's turn soon. In cells ATP provides energy by breaking its bonds. The same will be true of you. The destruction of that pathetic bond I've been unable to notice you two forming should provide you with more than enough energy to properly prepare yourself for what comes next."

Red J's mouth opened, but his mouth flapped like a fishes, leaving nothing in its wake. The black haired man continued to press button on his watch and Red J's body shook back and forth slightly.

Then in one solid leap he went from sitting, before the group to standing before them, belting out lyrics in a fine tenor. "Love is required, whenever he's hired, it comes just before the kill! No one can catch him, no hit man can match him, for his million dollar skill!" "J, are you okay?" "I feel fantastic, and I never fever felt as good as how I do right now, except for maybe when I think the day I felt the way I do right now!"

Chapter 8 The wrong inside you can't get it right, you might as well get on the train, It's a war!

Aeris could only hope that Sephiroth was right when he gave her the location of the slavers' main base. If he wasn't, then she might end up ridding this chocobo out into the dessert and never coming back.

It was a slightly comforting thought that Sephiroth was almost never wrong about anything military. He was a God given (a particularly appropriate turn of phrase given his new profession) genius when it came to things involving war. Aeris had no particular reason to doubt Sephiroth's ability to read the mind of your average human being; if he could control them the way he had, then reading a mind must be child's play by comparison.

Oh yes, he could control them, that thought was heavy on her mind. She remembered how it had happened as she rode onward.

--

It had seemed a simple enough tavern, a place to stop for some food and maybe some information. Sephiroth was content to only order a few glasses of water for himself (he reminded Aeris of a plant, sometimes, all he ever needed was sunlight and water to survive, but then maybe that was the effect of mako in his bloodstream) and let Aeris get some real food.

They had sat there, Sephiroth letting Aeris lean on his cross because she was tired from the day of driving through the desert, even without walking, the sheer heat had worn on her.

Aeris began to slowly eat the food she had ordered as the two sat in complete silence. Side by side they made a very, very, odd picture, Sephiroth tall and imposing, Aeris practically nonexistent compared to him. Either way, both of them seemed like just two more customers one way or another, until they walked in.

"They" in this case was a group of roughly 20 men, all of whom wore black jackets and white pants. Every single one had a body that bulged with muscles. Sephiroth took one look and snorted in contempt.

In Sephiroth's eyes, these men might as well have been children; they were showoffs. In a real fight, all the muscles you needed could be hidden under your clothing, truly made the difference between survival and death was the skill and finesse with which you fought.

Aeris' eyes flickered between the men and Sephiroth, the men seemed like lumbering bears next to a lean hunting dog. She knew nothing good could result from any interaction with them, so she simply ignored them.

However the men did not feel like ignoring her, especially one man in particular. He was the biggest and the burliest of the group, and he approached her slowly. He reached out to grab her but Aeris moved to just outside her reach.

The man might have continued to pursue her, but he suddenly found a very large cross being held between him and Aeris. He looked at Sephiroth who was holding the cross with one hand and his glass of water with the other. "You're one arrogant son of a bitch! Don't you know who you're dealing with?" Sephiroth shrugged "Frankly I don't care who you are. Every person here can quite clearly see that you are terrible sinners, and a true man of god can never be defeated by such."

The man only laughed in response. "Did I hear that right priest? You wanna be a hero? For your information, we're the Dragon Hunters, and we take whatever or whoever we want!" Sephiroth sighed with air of a man contemplating the time it would take to clean the carcass of an ant off the underside of his shoe. "All humans exist only by the grace of God, if you wish to lose that grace, then by all means, attack me."

The man laughed, and Aeris shivered, not in fear for Sephiroth, but in fear of him, Sephiroth had a habit of being vindictive when humans where concerned, very vindictive. Aeris did the only thing she could to try and stop a fight she pleaded with the two combatants. "Sir, if you would, kindly leave us alone, we don't want any trouble." Unfortunately much like Sephiroth's apparent theory (that theory being that humans were little better then animals) these men could smell fear, or at least hear it, and they heard it loud and clear in Aeris' voice. These men were too used to no one fighting back for them to realize why she was afraid.

Sephiroth calmly took another drink from his glass of water, swallowed, and spoke. "I would advise you to rethink your choice of careers, for even though humans must be sinful by nature, you are more so then most. While I do not consider it my responsibility to bring such people to task, if you wish to see a land filled with people like you, try your best against me."

The man laughed long and hard. "You talk mighty big for a man with no gun against so many of his betters, priest! Why don't I give you a demonstration of why no one else ever bothers us!"

With lightning speed (at least from the man's perception, to Sephiroth it was like watching someone wade through honey) he drew a pistol and fired. The glass of water in Sephiroth's hand shattered; none of the shards pierced his gloves him but some of the water splashed on them. Sephiroth and turned away from the man to face the bartender. "Might I have another glass of water?"

Aeris covered her eyes, she knew what was going to happen next, and knew she didn't want to see it. "DON'T MOCK ME YOU ASSHOLE!" The man emptied his entire clip at Sephiroth from less than ten feet away. Not a single one of them touched him, in fact like an expert vetronliquest Sephiroth just sat their calmly draining a glass of water while he practiced his craft.

After a moment to swallow again Sephiroth put down his drink and stood up; these men where already his, from the moment they had entered he had cast out a net, and now they were helplessly caught in it. His movements had the languid grace of a tiger stretching before battle. "Impatience is such a detestable trait that so many of you humans seem to share.

You are always rushing, here, or there, never stopping to think about what your actions mean. You never stopped to realize that there are two ways out of this tavern, one of them is the door, the other is the next world. You have apparently chosen the second path."

The man only laughed as he slipped another clip into his gun. "What are you gonna do? Call down God on us, preacher?" Sephiroth smiled and nodded. "That is exactly what I am going to do. You have violated a solemn covenant I have made with the Lord.

I once wished to destroy every last bit of humanity down to the smallest speck of dust, but I put desire aside. I told the Lord that I would not seek out and destroy his children regardless of their sins, I would let them come to me. You have come to me in your sin, and you have tried to kill me, leaving aside what your base wants for my companion. She is worth far more then all of you slime put together, now, since you are so impatient, you may be the first. I suggest the rest of you watch, and more importantly learn, you may yet leave by the door if you pay attention."

The man raised his gun at Sephiroth and steadied his aim. "Stop spouting nonsense and fight back you bastard!" "BANG"

The noise rang out through the tavern, and the man fell to the floor, blood dripping from the hole in his head, he had shot himself. Sephiroth's hand turned to the others with the grace of a master puppeteer producing a show. "I would say God's made his intentions quite clear, if you have any grasp of how limitless his divine power is, you will get down on your knees and beg for his forgiveness."

As he spoke those words, Sephiroth truly smirked for the first time; God hadn't directly intervened in the fight, at least not yet anyway. Sephiroth had simply controlled the man's mind, it wasn't hard, though it typically took about a minute or so of doing nothing but poking around his foes craniums. Thus, while it was a talent he rarely used in combat, it proved a most effective one for making his work transcend the bounds of the ordinary. Doing it to several foes at a time was no real challenge, and right now every single one of these men was in Sephiroth's control. He simply had to give a sharp yank and they would dance like puppets.

Passion rules reason however, and the men didn't seam to realize just who they where up again. Guns where drawn, guns where fired, Aeris continued to cover her eyes and keep them shut, Sephiroth's face took on a look of lurid joy for a few moments. Then, finally, the gunfire ceased.

Sephiroth returned to his seat, and ordered yet another class of water. Aeris, however, couldn't return to her food, the sight of so many dead bodies on the floor had completely destroyed her appetite. Sephiroth finished the glass quickly, paid, and then followed her. He showed no concern for all the men who had blown their own bodies apart. On the way out he tossed a few extra coins to the bartender. "Have the bodies cremated and scatter the ashes, at least in death they can do something useful."

--

Aeris gripped the chocobo's reins tighter. Sometimes she thought Sephiroth was turning into the nicest man in the world, and at other, other times it was all to easy to remember that he had once wiped and entire village off the face of the Planet.

It was strange, in this world that was still mostly populated with Cetra and in his dealings with them, Sephiroth was to all extents a normal priest. However, mix in a human who was in any way doing something wrong, and Sephiroth turned into a veritable angel of death. He could kill any number of human bandits, but when surrounded by Cetra he could make you think he wouldn't hurt a fly.

She had thought Sephiroth had gotten better over the forty years since his death, he even gave the appearance he didn't even like to fight, most of the time. He no longer obsessively practiced with Masamune the way he had at first, as if his blade was the only thing in the world which he could trust not to betray him. She still saw him practicing hand to hand fighting, some of the time but not that often, though she supposed he often did so before dawn when she woke up.

But even if he only killed humans in self defence, the fact of the matter was that she could tell he loved to do it. To snuff them out like candles because they dared to oppose him. Sometimes she wondered if Sephiroth really did have some kind of multiple personality disorder, it certainly would explain things if there two of them. One of them was a the priest, a pious man of god. the other was General Sephiroth, a man who thought about only one thing, killing.

--

Sephiroth caught up with Aeris outside the tavern very quickly, too quickly for Aeris' liking. He placed a calming hand on her shoulder, but she spun around and knocked it off. "What do you think you were doing?" "Self defence, more importantly, those people will never harm anyone again."

Aeris' rage was only increased by Sephiroth's lack of emotion. "You know Sephiroth, you are truly lucky if you ever bothered to think about it. You have everything in this world, but you don't think about it, you're still fighting the last war. You would think with all the power you have, you could find a form of conflict resolution that doesn't involve killing people."

Sephiroth ran the hand that had been knocked from Aeris' shoulder along his cross. "I could, if it was in the best interest of others, but is it? I could have simply left those people with a stiff lesson, but those kind of people don't learn. Sin begets sin, once you start down the path of sin, and the longer you stay on it, the harder and harder redemption becomes. In the end the only redemption for those who are truly sinful is death."

Aeris scowled and shook her head. "I still believe in the heart that feels in the sin Sephiroth! I still believe that no one has the right to take someone else's life. If you had wanted to, you could have just marched them into some jail cells, maybe they even would have gotten justice at the end of the rope, but you didn't. You'd rather just dispense your own form of justice, and with you Sephiroth, justice always comes with fire."

Now both of Sephiroth's hands were resting on his cross. "I grant the same justice to humans as I would to any one else, rabid animals are shot. Humans who take slaves, who abuse women and children disserve death." Aeris glared right into the empty green lenses of Sephiroth's glasses. "Then why did you wait till they attacked you?"

Using just his right index finger, Sephiroth began to trace an invisible pattern on his cross. "I made an agreement with God, I will only strike out against his sinners when they threaten me."

Aeris felt like she was going cross eyed. "Sephiroth, what is going on in your mind? You say you only killed them in self defence, but every time I see you do it, I wonder have you changed in the least? What does a human life mean to you?"

Now it Sephiroth's entire left hand which was tracing the pattern. "An equivocal question, I simply take pleasure in doing the Lord's work, would you tell me those men deserved to live?" Aeris sighed, she was getting nowhere fast with this line of conversation. "How do you know they kept women and children as slaves?"

Sephiroth gave her a patronizing look "I had plenty of time to go over the cracks and crevices in their minds, believe me, what I saw would have made any decent person's blood boil."

A long pause hung in the air, somehow as if by focusing on someone else's pain, Aeris was able to forget her own. She was filled with determination now, just like when she'd been on her way to summon Holy. She silently wondered if the overwhelming sense of determination was what Sephiroth often felt.

"Make any decent person's blood boil you say? That's the problem with you Sephiroth, you're not a person, but a machine. You say the things they've done would make a decent person's blood boil, but yours didn't, you just sat there and waited, it isn't rage you kill them with, it's cold calculating pleasure. You didn't need a reason to kill them Sephiroth, you just needed an excuse!"

Sephiroth fell back as if he had been struck physically. "What do you know? I swore a long time to stay out of human matters, I tolerate them, but my power doesn't make me slaves to them. If they insist on their own deaths I am glad to oblige them with it."

"Your problem, Sephiroth, is that you're afraid to be happy. You look at the things you have, but you're afraid to let anything go your way. That's why you want to be with Cetra in this world, because you know no matter how hard you try, they'll snub you since you're descended from Jenova. You'd rather do things for Cetra who don't care then do them for humans who might think you're a hero to them. If I were you, the first thing I would be doing was going after the rest of those scum and freeing their slaves!"

Sephiroth crossed his hands in mock helplessness "They have no Cetra prisoners, I refuse to take part in matters solely concerning humans." Aeris slapped him, and knocked his glasses off, regardless of how dangerous it was for someone to see his eyes. "SEPHIROTH YOU'RE A HUMAN, START ACTING LIKE ONE!

I know what you're going to say, probably some pithy bible quote to explain why you shouldn't do anything. Hell, I'll give one to you: 'Blessed are the meek for the kingdom of God shall belong to them.' Well for those people who are here, this world is the kingdom of God, there may be no afterlife for them! What right does anyone have to control anyone else, to treat them as slaves?

You could do so much to help people, but you're only picking and choosing to help the Cetra who are in need. Some priest you are, refusing to help those who truly need your help! This isn't about religion Sephiroth, this is about simple right and wrong. Some things are just that simple, there are no shades of grey or silver here. What those people are doing is wrong, and I'm going to stop them or die trying! But before I go let me give you a bit from my own knowledge of the good book 'In truth whatever you do for the least of my people you do for me!'"

Aeris turned and Sephiroth slowly picked up his glasses and put them back on his face. "That was a very foolish thing to do Aeris. The bandits are several miles west of here, but it's only about an hour or two ride by chocobo. There are still another two or three score of them left, you would die trying to take them all on by yourself."

Aeris didn't look back. "You would kill without thinking to save a Cetra, and do nothing to save a human. I guess it's up to think about what exactly you would do to save a half Cetra, because you know deep down that's what you are." With that Aeris walked off leaving Sephiroth standing alone.

Slowly he relaxed to his normal state of being ready without looking like a frightened cat with its fur on end and leaned against his cross. He let out a very tired and very irritated sigh. "She does everything I can't like it's no big deal at all, dear Lord it's irritating."

--

Aeris gave the chocobo she had rented for less then a day her heels, urging it to go faster. As she urged her chocobo on she saw them, she saw those flags flying. It was the same flag that had flown on the vehicle outside town, a dragon with a knife through it.

She slowly dismounted, but was unable to find anything to tie the chocobo to amid the near total desert of sand. However, releasing the reins for a moment proved that the chocobo had been well trained, it would wait for her, if she ever came back.

Even as she went forward they where coming out to meet her. Five men, wearing black shirts and white pants and armed with automatic weapons. They looked at her with lecherous grins and she felt her skin shiver as they looked her up and down. Aeris stood up straight, but that only made the men laugh louder. "What do we have here boys? Usually we have to go looking for our trade, but this time we've got one of 'em coming to us!"

Aeris raised her staff in front of her and tried to give one of Sephiroth's patented smirks that made it quite clear that the person giving it controlled the universe. Sadly she messed up slightly, and it looked more like a lopsided grin but her voice came out all right. "I'm going to give you people one warning, if you come with me you'll be tried fairly. If you resist then I can't promise what will happen."

The men instantly broke into laughter, it took more then a full minute for it to subside. "What do we have here! This bitch's got some bite, well why don't we teach her some respect!" The man walked towards her, intending to beat the fight out of her. However Aeris hadn't been spent the last four decades of her life in Sephiroth's company without learning a thing or two about how to use her staff. Even if Sephiroth preferred a sword, he had knowledge of practically every weapon imaginable and gave Aeris some real training with her staff.

She sidestepped to the left as the man came in and gave him a whack upside the head with her staff. She must have gripped it in the right place, because the man dropped like a ton of bricks from the impact. The other four came at her, but Aeris quickly cast a haste spell on herself before they reached her.

Under such a spell Aeris could only guess that she viewed the world somewhat like Sephiroth did, everything happened in slow motion. She stood her ground and dispatched each man with a blow from her staff as they approached her, refusing to give them a chance to gang up on her. Those few seconds between them where enough, she knocked the other four flat on the ground. She gave each of them another good whack to make sure they where out, and then proceeded towards the camp.

The five slavers had gone down quickly and without much noise to reveal that they had been defeated. Thus it wasn't till she was practically among them that the other slavers realized she wasn't a slave. One man grabbed her elbow in a grip strong enough to send waves of pain along her body but she ignored it. The man had faint bits of alcohol on his breath. "Where do yah think your going darling? I think it's time for us to have some fun."

Aeris griped her staff tightly. ready to attack. "I wouldn't do that if I where you." The man just smiled lecherously at her. "Who do yah think you are bitch?" Aeris needed to sound confident to have any chance to pull this off, no matter how she actually felt. "Because I happen to be Aeris Gaste, of course you may not care who I am, but I think you'll care who my friend is." The man's grip tightened. "The way I sees it ya don't got any friends, not any more darling."

Aeris struck the man on the arm with her staff causing him to recoil and release her. She practically shouted her next words, loud enough for the entire slaver camp to here it. "I'm sure regardless of how insignificant your small human trading caravan is you have heard of the man who travels with me. His name is Sephiroth, General Sephiroth." The man apparently didn't recognize the name however. "Well him and me can talk when I see him!"

Aeris shook her head. "You don't see Sephiroth, you don't feel Sephiroth. All that happens is, you die. They call him the silver wind of death, a man who kills without thought, he'll burn your entire camp to the ground if you lay one more hand on me. This patch of ground will soon be called 'New Niblehime' once he's done with you."

The man may not have realized what was happening, but one of the other slavers came forward and scowled at her with contempt. "Sephiroth? No one can control him, that crazy bastard could level any city he wanted, they say he was raised by wolves! It's a nice story, but no little piece of work like you could control him."

Aeris shook her head, struggling to keep her smile steady. "There is one being on this world who can control Sephiroth, his mother, and she happened to decide to adopt me as her daughter! I'm sure even a bunch of ignoramuses like you would know how Sephiroth calls out the name of his mother as he strikes down his foes. Now unlike him, I actually have some value of your lives, if you give up I'll let the law deal with you rather then Sephiroth."

The man snorted in contempt. "Why would Sephiroth care to deal with us personally?" Aeris looked him right in the eyes and shuddered at the memory "Your detachment of twenty men who you sent into the town of Pleasant Breeze will never come back, do you know why?

Because they interrupted Sephiroth while he was drinking a glass of water, he killed all of them, and didn't even get his hands dirty. Hell he didn't get his gloves dirty! He just looked at them they way he does, and their hearts filled with fear, their legs turned to jelly, their spines to dust, they drew their guns and shot themselves in the head rather than face his wrath!"

The man raised his gun, "Nice story you uppity bitch, so nice that I'll spare you the humiliation: I'll just shoot you." Aeris couldn't stop the fear from showing now, this was what she wanted to avoid, but here it was. She mouthed the words as the bullets left the gun, and then they bounced off the invisible magical barrier that she called into existence around her.

In the blink of an eye she jumped forward and slammed the man to the ground with one well placed swing of her staff. Unfortunately, this time she didn't have the luxury of stealth, slavers came at her from all directions. Aeris had excepted the possibility accepted that she would end up being assaulted from all directions, and that she would have to strike first. From her hands came freezing winds, freezing winds that solidified around guns turning them into useless chunks of ice. Some of the slavers' hands even ended up getting the 'cold shoulder' as well, though Aeris hoped such a thing wouldn't kill them.

Still, plenty of the slavers managed to drop their weapon as they became chill to the touch and raced at her. Aeris knew the odds weren't good, but she wouldn't give up, man after man fell as she struck them with her staff, but for everyone who went down there seemed to be another coming at her from a different direction. Try as she did, eventually Aeris felt a strong pair of arms grasp her from behind and watched hopelessly as her staff was ripped from her hand and she was hurled to the ground.

Aeris had one hope left, if these men didn't realize that she was a half Cetra, that she could still do some magic without the materia in her staff, she would have a chance to start another battle when they weren't expecting it. It was a vain hope though, the face of the man who she looked up at was contorted with rage, he wasn't thinking about slaves or abusing any more, her just wanted her death.

He drew forth a small pistol and fired it into the sand barely missing Aeris' head. He fired again, and again, and again, and again. Each bullet kicked up sand, and Aeris felt shivers go down her spine, as she rolled back and forth, somehow dodging the bullets. The slaver placed his foot on her chest and slowly pressed the gun's barrel against her head. "Time to get yours, bitch!" Aeris closed her eyes, herd a loud impact, but strangely there was no pain.

Slowly she opened her eyes, and looked up. The man who had been about to shoot her was now lying flat on the ground with a cross covered in brown paper lying on his chest. The other slavers turned to face the direction from which the cross had come, and a man in black emerged from the sand to meet their gazes.

His silver hair fanned out behind him in the wind and his voice easily carried to his opponents. "Trying to hurt a Cetra, you scum should be burnt like the garbage you are!" In the blink of an eye the man was suddenly among them, and he removed the cross from the slavers chest before rending the man unconscious with one good kick.

He rested the cross over his shoulder as he faced them. "If you do not repent you sinners will burn in hell, so to that end I will see that you rot in jail and have time to realize the error of your ways." Most of the bandits pulled out pistols and fired, but Sephiroth simply leaned forward, and slamming the cross into the ground before him.

The bullets tore through its paper covering, and wasted themselves on the metal beneath. When their guns ran dry Sephiroth picked up the cross again. "Is that all you have?"

The slavers now gave into an almost animalistic rage and raced at Sephiroth wanting to tear him limb from limb. All they got was the end of a gloved hand, or a leather boot. Without breaking a sweat Sephiroth floored the ten men.

The first one he dealt with through a complicated martial arts throw. He caught the second's punch, broke his arm with a quick twist and tossed him at the third. The fourth he greeted with a kick to the chest that knocked anything resembling air from his lungs. Against the fifth, he simply slammed his elbow directly into the man's rib cage, breaking a few bones but not killing him. The sixth lost more then a few teeth to Sephiroth's uppercut. The seventh and eighth's heads Sephiroth slammed together with ease. Finally he leapt forward and grabbed the ninth and tenth's arms and swung their entire bodies against each other.

He then took a moment to look over the fallen bodies of slavers and at Aeris as she slowly stood back up, and finally he looked up to the sky. "Lord, what the Hell am I doing here?" Aeris smiled at him. "Well I would guess you're saving my life, and giving new meaning to the lives of these people." As she spoke the few slaves who were chained outside like dogs slowly began to stare at Sephiroth and Aeris as if they were otherworldly beings.

Aeris finally brung herself to ask the question that could not go unasked. "What made you, the great, all powerful Sephiroth, decide to change your mind?" Sephiroth looked away from Aeris. "I simply asked the Lord for a chance to reinterpret our bargain a bit. He agreed that by having one of their ranks try to kill me, these sinners had deemed their entire lot to some divine retribution. However he made me promise not to kill any of them, though frankly the release of death is too good for this lot." There was a pause, and Aeris knew why Sephiroth had refused to look her in the eye as he spoke those words.

Aeris slowly approached Sephiroth and gave him a hug. "Nice try, but you're too zealous for your own good, you really stink at lying." Aeris found her hug broken (and not at all returned) by Sephiroth who pushed her away with contempt. "I am a vessel for the Lord, I simply use as much of his endless mercy as he requests me to. Don't think I'm going to do this again, if you want to go chasseing down every cat that ever got caught in a tree I'm going to go back to hunting Jenova, without you." Aeris looked away from Sephiroth, and she smiled a small, knowing smile.

--

General Sephiroth Valentine was not a man known for doing things by halves, something Aeris realized rather painfully right now. He had come to the slaves one at a time, uttered "The lord wished for his people to be set free, you are now a child of god." Then, with deliberate ease, tore apart the metal chains they wore like they were made of paper.

He needed no tools, he ripped them apart with a twitch of the wrist, careful not to hurt the people bound by them. To these humans, many of whom had never personally seen Sephiroth before, he might have well have sprouted wings. In their eyes he was an angel, having come down from heaven to free them. They thanked Aeris, but she was mortal like them, if not for Sephiroth's intervention she would have failed, Sephiroth could have wiped out the entire camp. Some said he could have called down a rain of fiery rocks on his merest whim, and he made sure not to comment on how right they were.

Either way, Sephiroth went on a bit farther then Aeris had expected, he quite willingly handed out all the money the two had left to the former slaves, thought it wasn't much, particularly divided among the four dozen of them. Sephiroth showed a few of them how to use the slaver's vehicles to head back into town, leaving Sephiroth and Aeris alone with the captured slavers. Not that Sephiroth in any way felt the odds where not in their favor if it came to battle.

Sephiroth had yet to reveal the power of his cross to the slavers, (or even to Aeris) but none of them felt in anyway confident against a man who had so easily defeated them. Aeris may have taken down most of them, but even from the start of the fight she had known she could lose, one look in Sephiroth's eyes made it clear that he expected to win any fight he took part in, and not because of bravado. Thus, in what Aeris thought was payback for dragging him into this, he and she had to personally guard the slavers on their walk back to civilization.

Aeris, of course, could still ride her chocobo while Sephiroth had to go it on foot (Sephiroth had "walked" out to the slavers camp, if you could call going a mile every four minuets walking for more then an hour a walk), but Aeris was still subject to the pains that came with spending considerably amounts of time out under that blistering heat.

More to the point, as the entire affair of freeing the slaves had dragged on for so long they had to camp out in the desert for a night. A few unfortunate slavers learned that when Sephiroth told them it was futile to try and surprise him, he meant it.

He had gone from what Aeris would call "sound asleep" to "full combat" in all the time it took for one very stupid slaver to try and get his arms around the resting priest. The man was rewarded with a hard landing on the sand as Sephiroth easily grabbed both his hands and tossed him like a sack of potatoes. There where a few stupid enough to try to sneak off in the night, and they got the pleasure of making the trip back to town on extremely wobbly legs.

Still in the end, it was resolved without anyone else having to die, and Sephiroth felt that the members of the town were quite capable of making sure at least that the slavers didn't see the light of day for several decades. At least after he gave some of them a quick course in how to unsafety a gun and aim. Armed with weapons of the slaver who Sephiroth had killed in the tavern, the slavers wouldn't be breaking free any time soon.

Sephiroth seamed glad to be rid of the entire business and refused to take money for simply showing people (particularly the Cetra in the town) how to stand up to bandits. Thus when he and Aeris drove off in the jeep (the keys for which Sephiroth wore around his arm when they weren't in use) it was the only possession they had which they couldn't carry, at least Aeris didn't Sephiroth could have carried the jeep.

--

Sephiroth shrugged, opened the door and stepped out. "This is the end of the ride for us Aeris, the thing's got no mako left. From here on in, we walk." Aeris looked at the jeep fondly as she stepped out. "Your doing this to me on purpose, I know it. Waiting till I thought I was going to die to show up, making us walk back, giving away all our money, what are you trying to teach me? You better have a reason because if you're doing it just for kicks, I swear I'll drain you blood into that things engine, it should have enough mako in it to get me to the next town."

Sephiroth gave her a small smile "I am merely giving you a lesson in cause and effect Aeris. Good intentions without the ability to back them up do little but create more pain and suffering. We each carry burdens in life; to lighten the load of another, you increase that on your shoulders. Some of us can carry more, and some carry less, but no one can just make those problems vanish into thin air. I hope my lesson will make you consider your actions a bit more thoroughly next time, while you may have been right, you acted with blind desire to help others. Blind desire and blind ambition have the same results in the end, you trip on something."

Aeris sighed and grabbed her staff from where she had put it down in the jeep. "Remind me never to travel with you again Sephiroth, you seam to enjoy walking through this wasteland far too much." Sephiroth shrugged. "Jesus always travelled on foot, it is the only true way to learn how far you have gone." Aeris looked out into the desert and shook her head. "I don't mind how far I've gone by foot, it's how far I still have to go that bothers me." "Don't we all, Cetra, don't we all?"

FN: Red J starts singing "The Man With the Golden Gun" and then segues into "I Feel Fantastic" Jonathan Coulton a song which might as well be his theme song if you take the time to look up the entire lyrics for it.


	9. Chapter 9

FN: Too tired to write scathing criticism or mind trippyness... Like I said I despise what this fic is and that's why its taking me so long between updates because its hard for me to work up the energy to proofread it.

Therefore to show you what your normal rate of updates should be like, I will not even begin working on editing the next chapter until thegr8sephiroth gets around to posting the first chapter of the sequel to Twilight Perfection. That or I don't know, I get some freaking reviews on the other stories I've written.

You think I'm bluffing? Just try me....

Chapter 9: I'm young and I'm hopeless, I'm going no where fast that's what they say.

The two groups met in complete silence, as if their meeting was just a passing in chance instead of one that had been planned. No stories were exchanged, only a small half of a coin with a metallic glint to it. Sephiroth took it from Vincent, quickly opened the a small box and pressed it next to another half coin the two fitting together perfectly. Sephiroth quickly showed the three completed coins and nine half coins in what could be assumed was an offhand gesture, instead of a wordless warning.

Then neither group acknowledged the other's existence, in the morning both groups walked out of town ignoring the other till all the buildings where out of sight. Like the motions of an elaborate dance both groups passed one member to the other. The two women walked off with each other in one direction, the two men in another.

---

Aeris leaned on her staff for support, it was times like these that she knew just what a third wheel she was, even if no one ever talked about it. Still, it was just as clear as if she had shouted from the tallest rooftop she could find that Lucresia wasn't pushing herself as hard as she could have been, she was slowing down, helping Aeris walk.

After travelling with Sephiroth it hurt her deep down to admit that she was glad for those offers and readily accepted them. She didn't have mako injections, she didn't have Jenova cells, all she had was some Cetra in her and that was worth nothing on these walks through the desert. The hot sun could have killed her just as surely as any fire spell if she was stranded this far from civilization on her own.

Lucresia occasionally looked at a small compass she removed from her briefcase and made a few adjustments in the direction they walked but on the whole she seemed completely sure of her course. Aeris was less so, if they where going the direction she thought they where going, they where headed out to total wasteland. That was why many people didn't travel now, if you weren't careful you could walk right into the desert, get lost, and never been seen again.

The fact that Lucresia hadn't bothered to consult any maps, only her compass also did little to inspire Aeris' confidence. Still, as she leaned on her staff Lucresia looked up at the sun and gave a small nod. "We've been walking for about four hours now. The shelter should be up ahead in a couple of minuets now, another half an hour at most." Aeris heaved a deep sigh. "I find it hard to believe that anyone, could take orphans this far out into the desert."

Lucresia shrugged helplessly. "Other people wouldn't believe that the place we lived at for so many years existed. Sephiroth wanted to make sure that nothing bad happened to this place while he was away and it's remoteness is its prime defence." Aeris walked up the sand dune using her staff to guide her feet with every step she took before her boots hit the ground. It was not an easy thing considering she had to make sure she didn't let her feet slide and have to climb all the way back up the hill.

As she finally did come to the top of the hill her eyes opened wide as suddenly before her jutting from the sand she saw a church surrounded by a small field of green with an equally small stream running through it. But then it was not so little considering that the church had to be about three times the size of the house she had lived at for several years. It was the work of several Cetra, she could see that as she drew nearer, it was too large for one Cetra alone to have made it, even if they'd worked at it over the process of several years.

As she finally drew closer to the garden her eyes could pick out a woman slowly patting the ground and whispering reassuring words to it. She stood up and looked slightly warily at them and then suddenly she smiled. Her hair was a slightly faded red but her eyes where still a brightly shining green. It was not mako that made them glow, but an inner fire.

Green was not the only color Cetra's eyes came in, but unlike in humans it was the most common, and regardless of what color they where, they had a shine to them. She smiled at Lucresia who's own eyes glowed with a far greater intensity, and for a moment that surprised Aeris. The woman looked like she was a few years older than Lucresia, which didn't say much as Lucresia still looked to be closer to thirty than forty, just like her son.

Even though she had been just working in the ground she didn't bother to clean her dirt fingers before shaking hands with Lucresia. Her voice was warm but something in her eyes suggested she wasn't quite sure what to do with the rest of her body. "Lucresia, the others wondered how long it would be till you or your son showed up, after all it is about time for his traditional visit."

Lucresia let out a small laugh. "I know, sadly Sephiroth won't be able to show up for a while Cassie." Cassie laughed a laugh which still had joviality of a young girl. "Yes, as he would say 'The Lord's work is never done.' He would bend down to pick up a gil in the middle of the desert just so he could give it to someone else." Aeris couldn't keep her face from showing surprise, anywhere else a visit from Sephiroth would be considered equivalent with a passing tornado.

At the surprise that flickered in her eyes Cassie cocked an eyebrow at Lucresia. "Is she one of yours?" Lucresia shook her head "Cassie, this is Aeris Gaste. Sephiroth and I decided that we should look after her personally. Her situation was a good reason for us to do it under the circumstances."

Cassie's eyes suddenly widened just like Aeris' had, but she snapped them back to normal just as quickly. "I understand, I have a small idea what happens when you get caught in a crossfire. Thank the Planet that mine was over money instead of ideology. Your timing is good as ever, I was just about to head inside, and judging by your faces you two would like to join me."

Aeris nodded eagerly, and all three of them began to walk towards the church. The garden was larger then Aeris had thought at first, and marvelled at how much work it must have taken. Lucresia spoke with complete frankness as they walked along. "It's okay to stare Aeris, this place turned out to be a greater chunk of Eden then even Sephiroth planned." Aeris looked around and shuddered slightly. "Sephiroth made this?"

It wasn't Lucresia who answered but Cassie. "Yes, it was close to three and a half decades ago. My parents had been killed by a group of bandits when our caravan was attacked, I was the only one left. I don't remember much of it, thank the Planet, but I remember Sephiroth arriving, suffice to say those bandits never hurt anyone ever again, and he took me here.

I'm not sure if Sephiroth built this thing, or we did with his help, but it was his idea. The world that for so long was safe is now becoming anything but, and for the first time there are Cetra orphans. So he did what somebody needed to do, he set up this church so that we could look after ourselves by looking after each other. When he left we were still pretty young, but he's come back every ten years, to make sure we're okay. It wasn't long before we started sending a few of us out to do the same thing he had. There aren't only Cetra orphans here any more, we take in humans as well."

Aeris instantly understood Lucresia's previous statements, she doubted Sephiroth would have envisioned that. However, one thought occurred to her. "Where did Sephiroth find time for all this?" Lucresia smiled to herself at a private joke. "You may not have realized it, but about a year after I found you, he left us for two years, that when he set this place up. He's been gone for about six month to a year for every decade just to look after this place."

Aeris shuddered, and wordlessly wondered to herself how she could not have noticed that Sephiroth had been gone for five years. However the other half of her pointed out that as she wasn't ageing, two years really wasn't that much. In the end, she knew at that time she wouldn't have truly noticed, she was only thinking about herself and trying to piece his world back together.

As they approached the front door Cassie slowly opened it before she turned back to Lucresia and gave her a small wink. "Zazie will be glad to see you, he couldn't wait for you to get back. He seamed more interested about knowing when you would be back than meeting a living legend like Sephiroth."

Aeris raised an eyebrow at Lucresia, but she answered as they walked into the blessedly shaded church. "I came out here on my own a few years ago to see how Sephiroth's work was going, and I ended up getting a bit more involved in it than I had planned. I found a human child named Zazie out in the desert after his parents had been killed by some particularly nasty bandits." Cassie nodded along with the story without looking back. "Zazie has been doing well enough out here, he's not fitting in as neatly as most of the others do, but he's happy with the sandworms."

Aeris started to ask a question but Cassie cut her off. "I'll let Zazie explain them, he's young, but ever since he came here he's spent almost every waking hour studying them." It was am empty room that Cassie lead them to however, and before Aeris could ask she nodded towards some chairs. "Seat yourselves wherever you like, this is the kitchen, and by the way would you like some water?" Aeris let out a happy sigh at the prospect of a cold refreshing drink. "Yes, I think I would..."

---

Aeris sucked in a breath and for the first time in a long while he lungs didn't instantly pull all the oxygen from the air she had inhaled before making her exhale without a second thought. Her day was now starting to take a turn for the better and the sun had begun to start descending before Cassie lead Zazie down over to them.

One quick look told Aeris that he had to be about eight or so years old. His hair was a straw yellow that apparently was badly in need of a combing, not that he seamed to care. His eyes where a deep blue ranging to violet that brimmed with an odd intelligence even for his young age. He wore a simple brown cloak that went all the way around him and was large enough to cover him from his neck down to the end of his brown pants.

He instantly jumped to Lucresia's side, his face split by a wide smile, a smile that Lucresia soon shared. She playfully ruffled Zazie's hair for a moment before speaking. "So Zazie, how are the sandworms doing?" Zazie slowly drew back and his face twisted in an odd look, as if he couldn't quite figure out how to answer her question. "Well personally I'm a little surprised you didn't see them yourself on your way here. For some reason the sandworms have started to really act up recently. Most of the time they rarely come to the surface while people are around, but now they're all shaken up by something. I wana go out find out, but they say I'm not old enough to go out on my own...."

His eyes fell the floor and Aeris could already see the gears starting to turn in Lucresia's head and she let out an agitated sigh. Clearly it was his mother's side of the family that Sephiroth got his impulsiveness, and a fair bit of his determination. One of the things she learned about Lucresia since they'd met, was that once she got an idea into her head, it was nearly impossible to get her to give that idea up.

Aeris reached for her glass of ice water (thankfully Sephiroth had thought ahead to install practically every technological convince known to man when he built the place) and slowly began to drink from it. She wanted to get more water into her system before they started walking again, she was going to be sweating a lot before today was over.

---

It was barely half an hour latter by the time Lucresia had told (and convinced) most of the members of the church to let her take Zazie with her for another journey out into the desert. Aeris was not by any means excited about the prospect of another journey, but she decided to go along anyways. Her already low hopes for how things would turn out promptly hit rock bottom once she realized Lucresia was going to let Zazie decided which direction they walked.

Then they somehow managed to plunge right through rock bottom when it turned out that Zazie didn't seem to know what direction he wanted to go either. At least untill he simply stroked something by his right ear as if listening for only hear could hear, and his eyes suddenly filled with understanding. He pointed in what for all purposes to Aeris was a completely random direction before starting off. Lucresia followed him without so much of an ounce of hesitation.

As they walked along Aeris decided that it was better to make conversation than to deal with silence that otherwise resulted, so she decided to voice the forward most thought in her mind at the moemnt. "Do sandworms eat people?" Zazie shrugged and smiled. "Not that often, and only in self defence. They're herbivores mainly, all those teeth are just for show. Your average sandworm is twenty feet long, they might look like some kind of monsters, but they're actually really sweet. I've heard it's that way with wolves too, but you don't get a chance to see any of those out here, not to mention they're carnivores."

Aeris was not in no way 'set free' from her worries by this tidbit of information. "So we're looking for these things, why exactly?" Zazie sighed despondently. "It's live and let live with sandworms for most people, but one way or another the worms have to keep living.

You see sandworms can rip through sand and then their bodies recycle it. The more sandworms you have, the better the soil is, even if you need to dig down to find it. So when people start worrying about them, and hunting sandworms, they're really hunting themselves.

Even we can only do so much to help enhance nutrients in the soil, so sandworms are more important now then ever. But looking the way they do it only takes some bad rumors, and people are hunting sandworms all over the place. Hunting them, when they're the most useful animal in the world!"

Aeris couldn't keep her eyebrows from shooting upwards in surprise again, but then slowly she began to think about how she had reacted in similar circumstances to Zazie's. She had thrown herself into growing flowers when she was young, spending hours tending to them, somehow making them grow in a place with no sunlight She couldn't have been much older then Zazie, it was just look at in it retrospect made it seem odd. Particularly considering that Aeris was now sixty five years old. She paused for a moment to work that one over. She was sixty five, twenty five years on the planet, forty years here, yet she still looked as young as she had when she died.

The Promise land only aged Cetra, being part human Aeris hadn't aged, one more thin she slightly detested. To think that so much time could pass without her accomplishing anything, but she still had even more time. Time she decided was most defiantly the most relative of all resources. She had done much more in those first twenty five years then in the last forty, but those forty could go on forever. Her twenty five years would have ended as she grew older and died naturally, but here her forty years meant nothing.

Supposing she survived this, at least. Living forever, it was a frightening thought, made even more frightening by the thought of what it would have meant if she hadn't been staying with people who aged like her. Diving yet further into her contemplations she silently gripped her staff and prepared for the long trip ahead.

---

They changed directions every now and again, Zazie would tap his head just above his right ear now again before adjusting the direction that they walked. It seemed to be going perfectly normal until suddenly the ground beneath them started to shake with ferocity and all three of them where almost thrown to the ground.

Zazie was the first one to recover from his fall and almost instantly he was back on his feet with a desperate cry of "SANDWORM!" As he spoke, a huge monstrous head emerged from the sand, it's many teeth where almost rendered redundant against it's huge gapping maw and it's body covered in countless overlapping armored plates like a oversized caterpillar.

Lucresia griped her suitcase and began open it as soon as she was on her feet but Zazie touched her hand lightly. "Don't. Your more likely make it mad than actually do any real damage. Let's just try not to get it mad at us." Unfortunately as he spoke the sandworm made a hissing sound and Zazie' cry of "RUN" was not truly needed.

All three of them jumped (though not in the same direction) as that gaping maw spat forth a mass of some ugly green substance. The stuff bubbled as it struck the sand corroding it out of existence. Zazie let out a small cry as he saw that happen. "They normally only use that acid to eat through dirt and rocks as they move, not to attack!"

It was a surprisingly calm statement given the situation and who it was coming from, but that made Aeris less calm all the same. The huge monster did not spit forth another glob of acid, instead its huge body slowly rose from the sand in all its glory, leaving the three to stare in a mixture of a horror and awe. Zazie shuddered slightly as he tapped his head just above his right ear. "Something's wrong with this one, sandworms never, ever come fully above ground, if they did they'd have to create a new hole for them to crawl back down!"

The monster began to circle around them like a living wall that drew closer with every passing moment. Before the worm could crush them with its body a jeep appeared out of the dessert coming towards them, with armed men on board. However, as it drew closer no shots were fired at the sandworm, instead a gruff voice spoke to them. "DROP YOU WEAPONS NOW OR YOU'RE WORM BAIT!"

Three distressed looks were exchanged, and a staff and a briefcase fell to the ground. Zazie shuddered, but much to Aeris' surprise his face was unmarred by the wetness of tears, only letting lose with a sarcastic mutter. "This is studying sandworms a little closer than I wanted to...:. The sandworm amazingly began to slowly worm its way back down into the ground and the jeep drove closer, guns pointed right at them.

The man who spoken growled gruffly at them a second time. "Get into the car, we'll see what the boss wants to do with you!" Aeris' staff was taken from the ground and thrown into the jeep without a thought and nobody seemed to want to try and open Lucresia's briefcase. Guns where leveled at all three of them, and no more words were spoken. Lucresia on the other hand had whispered a few words before this had started. "Don't resist them now, they're expecting it, wait for my signal." The young boy and the sixty five year old half Cetra both nodded like obedient children.

---

They where driven into a small camp and they were lead under guard to the one who was apparently in charge of the situation. He was a thin man with a black beared, and odd brown eyes. He looked down on them harshly. "What are you doing here?"

His voice was corse as sand, even Lucresia needed to remember to not stutter or show fear as she responded. "I didn't know that anyone owned any particular place and could keep others out of it." The man glowered at them with pity and hatred in his eyes.

"You stray unarmed dogs, this entire desert will soon by mine to control like a shiny pearl! That sandworm attacking you was no coincidence, allow me to show you the power of the Master of the Desert!" Guns where prodded into their backs (even Zazie's) and they where lead forward into a large tent, in the middle of which was an odd device apparently sticking into the ground. Next to it was a small screen with lines running along it and those lines jumped lightly as they walked into the room.

The Desert Master flipped a small switch on the odd device and it started too move back and forth. As he did the small green lines began to hop up and down like incredible speed almost leaping off the screen. He then flipped it off again and suddenly Zazie's face filled with anger.

"You... a subsonic wave generator, you creating vibrations in the ground to drive the sandworms mad! Disrupting their mating, and everything else, do you have any idea what your doing? Anything that hurts sandworms ends up hurting everyone else sooner or later, is all you think about yourself? You're using the sandworms like your own personal guard dogs!" The Desert Master leaned down and looked Zazie in the eye. "You know what, I don't care!"

He slapped Zazie with such strength that he was driven to the ground his limbs splayed wildly, and a large pink imprint on his cheek. Zazie lay on the ground in silence, his face contorting with rage as the Desert Master spoke. "The sandworms are tools that any man with enough intelligence can control. That is what separates brilliant men from the fools who surround them, we find ways to use tools to make other tools work for us!"

A small laugh left Zazie's mouth as blood trickled out of it, and somehow he managed to get his legs and arms back underneath him. Lucresia gave him an odd look that Aeris couldn't possibly understand, and then he looked the Desert Master right in the eye.

"You think it's fun to see another form of life suffer?" Zazie suddenly spun in the sand and he ripped the brown cloak was wearing from his neck sending flying straight up towards the ceiling of the tent, the guards eyes following it.

They where destined to die because they followed that cloak and did not see what was on underneath it. Aeris' eyes widened in complete and utter shock, underneath that cloak Zazie wore a red scarf leading down to a black shirt. A black shirt over which he wore a brown vest leading to brown gloves, brown gloves she had seen him wearing, but hadn't seen the black spiked armbands around his wrists. Nor had she seen that around his waste he wore two belts, with a holster strapped to each one.

His hands moved almost faster than Aeris' eyes could follow as he grabbed both of those guns and twisted them behind him without so much as a glance in the direction they where pointing. There was something surreal about it to Aeris, the way those two small silver guns especially made for a child to wield could fire real bullets instead of some play replica. Real bullets that regardless their small size ripped through skin and flesh, in the first two shots the guards behind him and Aeris went down.

He spun around pivoting on his foot, one gun pointing at the erstwhile Master of the Desert and the other along with his face pointed at the third guard. Zazie suddenly looked much taller, as if he had grown several inches in the span of a few seconds, his face was now transfixed in a snarl of rage.

Even if he had to point his gun up and tilt his head to bring it level with the final guard that made those two tiny revolvers no less deadly. The man suddenly fell to his knees looking into Zazie face barely uttering one word "Deamon" before the chambers rotated on both guns. One bullet ripped through the guard's skull killing him like the other two, the other bullet flew past the Master of the Desert slamming into the machine he had been using causing sparks to dance along it.

Zazie smirked at sight of the corpse before it. "A 'deamon' I suppose that's all your limited mind could ever comprehend me as!" He then turned and faced his one living foe inside the tent. "You think it's funny to abuse a lesser form of life, assuming there is such a ting? Well you know what, I think your right, because if it does exist I know you're it! Standing here watching you squirm in my sights, it's far more invigorating then fishing ever sounded!"

Aeris could only stare in horror. "Zazie what are you doing?" Zazie didn't turn to look at her as he snarled out his answer in what passed for a guttural voice coming from one so young. "What I'm doing is about to make this pathetic excuse for a man pay for what he did to my sandworms! Now 'Master' it appears that one of your subjects has an argument with you, what are you going to do?"

Suffice to say the Dessert Master was suffering from an entirely different kind of fear concerning Zazie than Aeris was at that moment. Aeris was afraid of what he might do if not stoped, the Master was afraid of what would happen to him if Zazie wasn't stoped, but he had no way to stop him. Zazie's eyes where no longer blue any more, at some point they had become a pure dark violet.

"I wana see you get down on the desert your supposedly the master of and kiss it begging for forgiveness!" The Desert Master did so, and as he spat sand out of his mouth a few moments later. "WHAT IN THE NAME OF GOD ARE YOU!" Zazie's lip twisted up in a defiant smirk. "MY NAME IS ZAZIE THE BEAST, AND I'M A REAL DESERT MASTER! Because I take the time to look after the desert, in fact I think I'll give you a first hand experience what the a real desert master does!"

With that, Zazie parted the hair on the right side of his face, and a small green device was apparently attached to his head in some way, most likely simply clipped to his ear. He tapped it three times, and suddenly the ground began to shake with increasing strength, at least untill a huge sandworm rose from the ground itself. In the blink of an eye "The Desert Master" became one with the desert as that worm made him its afternoon snack.

Aeris headed for the door and Zazie reached out a hand stopping her. "That would be a bad idea. Sandworms are ripping this place apart even as I speak. Anyone outside this tent is gonna end up inside a worms belly, you should just stay put for now." Aeris did, and her gaze locked not on Zazie but on Lucresia who did not look nearly as surprised as she did "You, have a lot of explaining to do."

---

Amazingly (or not so amazingly) one of the few things that the sandworms didn't destroy in the camp was the jeep with Aeris' staff and Lucresia's briefcase in it. Tents where melted by acidic breath and the people themselves had become just one small appetiser for sandworms.

As the three got back into jeep Zazie had once again put back on his cloak and tied it around his chest hiding his guns and armbands from sight. (actually he pushed the lose fitting armbands farther back on his arms, up to his shoulders to hide them from view. However with the flick of the wrist they would slide down his arms to rest just behind his gloves.)

No mater how she tried, Aeris was unable to make herself fully believe that he was the same person she had just seen kill three men, and by default destroy the rest of the encampment.

As the motor started with one deft twist Lucresia started talking. "Aeris, everything I told you about Zazie what I told you is true, I found him out in the desert after his parents had been killed, six years ago."

Aeris felt her eyebrows raise, it was like Vincent saying that he had done something when he was 35. What he generally meant was that he had done something when he was actually 65, but Vincent tracked his age as PM (Post Meteor) date +30. In fact she should have counted it as PM +60 but he didn't count BM (Before Meteor) years 30-0 for his age because he had slept through them. But how could Zazie's age be like that, unless he had only been two years old, then...

Lucresia shook her head sadly as if she as reading her mind. "He was six. You see I was tracking down some information to do with some science project Hojo was supposed to be working on out here since he had an unlimited number of Cetra subjects within his reach.

He wasn't shy about how he got them, he had one of his subordinates round up a group of bandits to attack the few people who where travelling, with the goal of taking a child alive. Zazie was unfortunately enough to be that child.

I arrived at the lab too late to stop the experiments, but fast enough to work with the results. You see they where doing more then simple Jenova cells and mako injections, they where also experimenting with Cetra's abilities to hear the planet.

However, they transferred those abilities into humans, or came close, but instead of hearing the planet Zazie hears the voices of animals, and being just about the only animal around, that meant sandworms. What they intended to do was use an on/off switch in that device you see on his ear, when its off he would be perfectly normal, when its on he would become a mindless animal.

I modified it to restrict transmissions so that he can control sandworms instead of the sandworms controlling him. I also made him contacts to eliminate the mako glow and make his eyes look more blue, and finally I made his guns for him."

Aeris looked back at Zazie who at the moment was paying more attention to the rapidly passing desert scenery then he was to the conversation. If he had been five six years ago. "He's only aged about half as much as should have..." Aeris let the thought trail off but Lucresia only nodded.

"The moment you get Jenova cells injected into you ageing starts to slow, most people only get them at an age where it isn't so noticeable, or at least not so undesirable. However Zazie will most likely look like an adolescent for the next century." Aeris shuddered, suddenly her own problems concerning the passing of time didn't seem so large all things concerned. However ,an odd thought came into her mind.

"Sephiroth got Jenova cells before he was even born, shouldn't he have gone through the same thing?" Lucresia shook her head sadly. "Because Sephiroth got them when he did the Jenova cells didn't alter human biology, they controlled it. Sephiroth didn't slow ageing like anyone else did, he stoped physically ageing the moment he hit his peak physical ability."

Aeris looked back at Zazie again, he was 11 years old and the gap between how old he was and how old he looked was apparently only get wider. The thought sent a shudder down her spine as she remembered what he had done. "Why did you do that for him?" Aeris didn't have time to realise what kind of question it was to ask, it simply slipped from her mouth. Lucresia gave a weak smile as she spoke. "I didn't need to see any more children grow up to be Sephiroth, that's what happens when they're given power, and now way to defend themselves from those who want to abuse them because of it."


End file.
